


In Any World

by jestbee



Series: Fic Every Day in June 2019 [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dreams, Fanfiction, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Magical Realism, Metafiction, Multiverse, Post-Tour, universe hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 00:16:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 44,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19051399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: Returning home after his second world tour, Dan feels lost, bored, and without direction.But things are about to get much more exciting when, while reading fanfiction in the bath,  Dan slips, hits his head, and passes out. When he wakes up, it's to a world that definitely isn't the one he came from, especially because his best friend is in bed with him.And if he thinks that is strange, things are about to get a whole lot weirder.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Originally devised for the Phandomficfest's Bingo fest wherein I got two cards and wants to write a fic that would depict all 50 tags. I was way too ambitious, and didn't post the fic when the fest was on. Then I was going to do it for the Second Chances fest but again, it was way too much for me to finish and I was stuck on doing the idea they way I had planned. So, instead, I'm posting it for fedij 2019. 
> 
> I'll tag the main tags on the fic as we go along, but I'll pop all the tags relevant at the top of each chapter. However, if you want to see the cards I'm working from you can find them [here](https://jestbee.tumblr.com/post/185291577217/these-are-the-bingo-cards-that-i-received-from-the)
> 
> A big thank you to @intoapuddle and @i-am-my-opheliac for helping with this one <3
> 
>  
> 
> **Tags for this chapter:** Post-tour, Houseplants, Twitter likes, instagram

Meme. Something about Brexit. Video promo. His whole Twitter timeline is boring. Dan lets out a loud huff of frustration and props his feet up on their coffee table. The foot stool is right there but he knows Phil will want to use it when he finally stops wandering around the house and tutting at the state of his houseplants. 

“They're dead mate, get over it,” he shouts down the stairs. 

Phil's answering “fuck you, you don't know” and associated chuntering is enough to keep him entertained for a few minutes but soon after it's back to scrolling mindlessly down his Twitter feed, or Tumblr dash, or even his Instagram. 

He can’t like anything, or post to his instagram or even do a short story about how boring it is to be back in London. Because after all the editing, they're in hibernation right now and he knows there are people out there tracking what he might be liking on Twitter and all the other platforms. So he’s stuck scrolling mindlessly without being able to actually do anything. He doesn’t really know why he’s bothering except that it’s become a kind of habit.

The problem with being back from tour is the lack of direction. He enjoys not having to get up in the mornings, and it had gotten fairly frantic at the end with the cancelled show, logistics problems, and some ghastly weather following them around, but he misses it all the same. 

It's nice having something tangible to remind him that all of his questionable life choices have had an impact after all. That he didn't fuck up everything completely. 

Back on his couch in his pyjamas with nothing to do but stare at social media, it's harder to remember that. 

Objectively, he's only in this state because they'd agreed to have a rest. A bit of a break to reset. He knows there are emails he could answer, future projects and deals and always, always something new. But he'd promised Phil he wouldn't. 

Phil, who despite the realisation that the fate of his house plants was not just an ongoing joke on tour, seems to be quite enjoying pyjama week 2.0. 

Dan tips his head back on the couch and sighs. 

“What’s up with you?” 

Phil has wandered back up the stairs with a small grey watering can in hand and is staring down at Dan as if he is the weirdest thing Phil has encountered in a while. 

“Dunno,” Dan says, because it’s the truth. He doesn’t know, really. He just has an itch under his skin, a restlessness he doesn’t know what to do with. 

Phil gives him one of those appraising looks. He’s been on the receiving end of those for the last five months and he’s used to what they mean. 

“I’m not depressed,” Dan says. 

Phil still doesn’t reply, just purses his lips and acts like he doesn’t quite believe Dan would tell him if he were. Which is a valid concern given what happened in Australia. 

“I’m not,” Dan insists. 

“Is this about the purpose thing?” Phil asks, “Are you spiralling into a ‘what does it all mean’ cycle again?” 

“No,” Dan mumbles, picking up his head and looking back down at his laptop screen. He’s sick of looking at Phil’s knowing expression, sick of him always being right and knowing what to say. Honestly, best friends are the worst. 

“You are.” 

“I’m just…” He refreshes the top of Twitter which tells him he should ‘See 2 new tweets’ but they’re both from brands he followed during projects tweeting about something he no longer needs to know. He should unfollow really. He should do a lot of things. “Bored.” 

“Can’t you find something to do?” 

“I could be working,” Dan points out.

“True,” Phil allows, “and if you really don’t want a break we don’t have to have one. I just thought we said…” 

They did say. Before they went they said they’d have a break at the other end, half way through they were looking forward to it and near the end well… by then they thought it was the only thing that would save them. The final bright shows in Asia after the disaster of having to cancel one in Manila had been a welcome relief, and Dan had just started to feel the spark of those shows like something warm in his veins when they’d had to come home. 

Tired, yes, but he wasn’t done.

“We could watch a movie?” Dan says. 

There had been a lot of movies on tour. To be honest if he’s thinking on a larger more introspective scope, which he certainly is today apparently, there have been a lot of movies with Phil in general. Hotel rooms, the dark enclosed space at the back of their tour bus. This couch, the one before, on laptops and airplane screens, TVs in parent’s houses and in the flat in Manchester. Even more when he was escaping from uni work on that tiny two-seater sofa in Phil’s flat. The red bucket thing that was too shallow by far and barely fit them both. Pressed up against each other from hip to thigh laughing at the same places of the plot. 

He doesn’t know why he is thinking about that. Why any of it matters. 

It’s just being back home, it has him out of sorts. He always gets like this when he has too much time to think. Once upon a time it had been easier to distract himself but it isn’t these days. He spends much more time thinking about life and what he wants and what makes him happy, about how he can live his truth. Back then he used to ignore it all. 

“I have to finish the plants,” Phil says, holding the watering can up as if that is somehow proof that he really does have something to do. “Then I thought I’d go and read my book.” 

“Oh sure,” Dan shrugs, “No big deal.” 

And that feels worse than it should. It isn’t about the movie. Dan has seen enough movies to last him a lifetime. It’s about the fact that Phil hasn’t said no to hanging out for five months, and before that it was very rarely, but now that they’re back it feels different. Somehow. Like something is going to come to an end or something is changing.

Maybe it’s the wrapping up of a big project that’s making him feel like this. Maybe it’s the thought that he has to grow up and once again he’s trying to crawl into a little hole and avoid it while using Phil as the excuse. 

Or maybe he just feels sad that Phil doesn’t have time for him these days. Which, while ridiculous given that they’re best friends in a way that not many other people have, does feel like the kind of petty and childish notion Dan is prone to having on occasion. 

He’s probably imagining it, but since they’ve been back Phil has taken to spending more time in his own room and less time in Dan’s space. He should be grateful to have some room to breathe finally but really, he feels as if he’s choking. 

“Maybe later?” Phil suggests.

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Dan thinks he does a reasonable job of acting like he doesn’t care. 

“Why don’t you have a bath?” Phil says, still gripping the watering can in his hand and holding it upright so that it doesn’t spill. He looks like he might want to water Dan, to bring him back to life a little bit. Maybe that’s why he suggests the bath. 

On tour, a bath was always good to calm his fraying nerves. Whenever they passed a fancy shop selling toiletries Phil had made sure to usher him inside and make encouraging noises as he picked out a bath bomb that suited his mood. Or the mood he wanted to be in. 

“I might,” Dan nods offhandedly. 

“Okay,” And then Phil smiles and seems like he’s satisfied with him. “I’m off to do the others.” 

He shakes the can at Dan a little bit and there is the faint swishing sound of the water sloshing about. Then he turns on his heel and goes off to find the fern they have on the upstairs kitchen windowsill that is going a little brown around the edges. 

He can probably save that one. 

Dan turns back to his laptop and decides he’s had enough of Twitter and current events and all of that. Tumblr is somewhat better, even if he does feel a bit like he should be building a queue of ‘relatable’ memes. Not that he’s done that in a while anyway, but it’s an option. 

He’s missing tour. He’s missing meeting people and feeling like he has a purpose and yeah, maybe he’s missing hanging out with Phil just a bit so he isn’t proud of what he does next but he does it. Navigating to the Dan and Phil tag is a last resort he doesn’t do often, not outside of research for videos or something, but when the page loads with gifs of him and Phil in various gaming videos and pinofs and even illicit footage filmed from the audience of one of their shows, he’s happy to watch them play out. 

It doesn’t take him long until he reaches the first fanfic post. He’d usually scroll right on past but the summary catches his eye and he pauses, just for a moment. 

_Dan and Phil return home from tour and spend some quality time together now they’re finally alone._

He’s not an idiot. Nor is he naive. He’s been on the internet long enough to understand what the tags at the top mean, what the capital E under ‘Rating’ will indicate, but for some reason he lingers on the post anyway. 

It’s been years since he looked at this stuff. Back in the beginning it had been hilarious to look, to see what creative thoughts their fanbase came up with based on the information they were given. He’s read his fair share of crack fic and shock smut, but dipping his toe into the serious stuff had been where he’d drawn the line. It got too real, made something twist in his stomach he wasn’t ready to face.

It made him feel like there were expectations, or things he’d never been able to live up to. Taking out the assumptions about his romantic endeavours there was also the interpretation of his personality, his likes and dislikes, his mental state. It was better for him to take a step back, leave all of that to the fans, and just stay in blissful ignorance about the whole thing. 

The post doesn’t have anything beyond the summary and the tags. There’s a link at the bottom that says ‘read on ao3’ and he holds his cursor overtop of it for half a second before clicking. This feels like a step. One he won’t be able to take back if he decides to cross the line. 

From the kitchen he can hear Phil’s shuffling steps. He’s in mismatched socks of course, but these are ones Dan recognises as a pair he hadn’t taken with him on tour. They are familiar, but new all at the same time after seeing the same rotation over and over for the last five months. 

As he comes in to view, Dan shuts his laptop quickly before Phil can spy the red and white webpage that has loaded on his screen. There is an audible click as it closes and Phil looks over at him. 

“You okay?” he says. 

“Yeah,” Dan replies, maybe too quickly and definitely a touch too loudly. “I’m fine. I might just… er… go have that bath.”

“Alright,” Phil shrugs, like it doesn’t matter at all. 

It probably doesn’t, he has better things to do anyway.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags for this chapter:** masturbation, envy, reach around, accident

Dan runs his bath, he lets a white and mint green bath bomb burst in the hot, steaming water and sinks into it with a short hiss as it sends a prickle of heat over his skin. It does go some way to soothing him so that he almost forgets about the website. He’s got his laptop precariously resting on a stool next to the bath and he eases the lid back up with a hastily dried hand, leaving a little drop of water on the edge of the keyboard.

The page is still there, mostly white with a red band across the top. He knows of ao3, of course he does, but he hasn’t spent a huge amount of time on it recently. He could close the page now, navigate away to something that doesn’t make his insides twist the smallest amount, but he doesn’t. 

Instead he pulls the laptop a little closer so that it is resting half on the edge of the bath and half on the stool. It’s a little precarious, but he’s got a hand rested on the trackpad so it shouldn’t be a problem. He’s done it loads of times before. 

The story is called _a little time_. Sounds precious. He can only imagine what kind of twee nonsense he’s in for. Sex written by someone who has never had it, or has but doesn’t really understand how it works when there are two dicks involved. 

He tells himself the reason he doesn’t close the page is because he wants something to roll his eyes at and then feels bad that this is something a fan has probably put a lot of time and creativity into regardless of the actual writing quality or realism of the sex. Not that he wants sex between him and Phil to be written realistically. Because that in itself wouldn’t be very realistic. 

He sighs. 

He scrolls down the page to start reading. Boredom or idle curiosity, whatever it is that makes him do it he isn’t sure, but he starts anyway. 

_Phil feels good inside him. Hot and hard and buried deep as his hips meet the cheeks of Dan’s ass in a steady, dizzying motion that makes Dan’s breath catch in his throat and a moan escape his lips._

_Their own bed feels comfortable under his knees. Their mattress is softer than those on tour and the headboard doesn't rattle, there's no threat of housekeeping ignoring a Do Not Disturb sign, and they don’t have anywhere to be but with each other._

_Phil takes his time. Driving his thrusts in maddening circles, brushing up against that sensitive spot inside him that made him want to pitch his arse backwards, to impale himself hard on Phil’s cock over and over. Only the firm grip of Phil’s hands on hips is stopping him from moving as he wants to. Phil is driving into him at the rate he wants and no faster, and there is nothing Dan can do about it._

Dan pauses for a second. He feels a little flushed in a way that has nothing to do with the heat of the bath. He hadn’t expected to be affected by reading something that was frankly ridiculous but somehow, he is. 

He feels hot and there is a tightness pooling in his groin. His dick is growing hard, twitching in interest at the thought of something he hadn’t meant to imagine. 

It's fine. Reading pornagraphic material is bound to make him feel turned on, even if it does involve him and his best friend. 

He just hasn't had sex in a while. Tour could have provided him with the opportunity if he'd wanted, and there were a whole new selection of people on the apps on his phone, but he'd been busy with the show, and seeing the sights with Phil. He hadn't had time. 

He has time now though. Time to lay in the warm water and wrap his hand around his hard length. He lets himself get lost in the story, try to imagine how it would feel to get fucked right now. Not by Phil, not necessarily by anyone in particular, just by someone. 

He feels a little envious of the version of himself in the fic. That version of Dan doesn't have to jack himself off in the bath and then deal with the mess afterwards. He has someone, someone that wants to touch him, to fuck him. 

_Dan's hands wind into the fabric of their sheets. His knuckles turn white as he grips, hard. Phil likes it like this, for Dan to keep himself restrained, to let Phil have his way with Dan powerless to do anything. He'll never tie Dan up, he doesn't need to. Dan remains obedient and still because Phil wants him to, and that is enough._

Dan's breath catches in his throat, and his hand speeds up on his cock. He didn't know that was a thing, but apparently the idea of Phil telling him what to do is something he likes. 

No. Not Phil. _Someone._ Someone telling him what to do is something he likes. 

He bites down on his bottom lip and tries to suppress the way his breathing has sped up, echoing softly around the tiled bathroom, louder in Dan's head than in reality, but still enough to cause him concern. Phil might hear, and how would he explain it? 

_Just as Dan is at the point of begging Phil to do something, to touch him, Phil relents. He reaches around Dan's body to grasp his firm, aching cock in his long, deft fingers—_

Dan's moan echoes off the tiles and Dan pulls his hand away, desperate to avoid being caught. His hand flies upward, without regard for its trajectory, and knocks his laptop where it is rested on the side of the bath. 

Dan lunges for it, bending his leg underneath himself to try and get some purchase, preventing his laptop from falling into the water. But the angle is wrong, and Dan loses grip on both the laptop and his footing all in one fell swoop. He falls backwards down into the bath, a shout louder than any moan could ever have been coming from his mouth. 

His laptop hits the dry floor with a thud, but Dan is pitched backwards. His ankle pulls, and a spike of pain runs through him, but Dan is plummeting down, his head colliding with the solid edge of the tub. 

He feels a sharp, flood of pain over the back of his head, his vision swims, and the world goes black.


	3. Chapter Three

Dan is aware of being really comfortable when he wakes up. A heavy, soft blanket is draped over him, but it doesn't feel suffocating. His back is supported by whatever it is he's laying on, and his head is cradled in a pillow that is just as soft as he likes it. This hospital, or wherever it is he has found himself after his little mishap, is almost as comfortable as home. It's a pleasant sensation, and he doesn't want to open his eyes just yet. 

He's floating somewhere between asleep and awake as the warm tender press of something soft makes its way down his chest. It's wet, small, and it drags against his skin in small, heated patches. A warm compress perhaps, something a nurse might administer to heal his wounds. Dan arches into it, the relief of something that feels so good, after something so scary, is almost too much. 

He doesn't feel much pain, slightly dizzy and off-kilter by the apparent lapse in time, but otherwise alright.

There is a pause, and Dan whines quietly, just in the back of his throat, barely audible. He hears a low, familiar chuckle, and then there are hands on his waistband. 

His eyes fly open and he finds himself in his own bedroom. There's something slightly off about it, like the room doesn't look quite right, but he puts it down to the bump on the head. He's much more preoccupied with the fact that there is a person underneath his sheet. Between his legs. 

A person slowly sliding down his pyjama bottoms. 

He squeaks, ripping the duvet back to expose a very familiar face peering up at him. His black hair is a riotous mess, and he's shirtless and squinting because he isn't wearing his glasses. He's clearly just out of sleep himself and so does not have his contacts in, but his squinting close-assessing expression is enough to unnerve Dan anyway. 

"Phil?" Dan says. 

"Damn," Phil grins. "I thought I was gunna get you before you woke up this time." 

"What?" 

Dan leans over to grab a pillow from the other side of the bed and holds it over his chest. It smells faintly of Phil's shampoo, but that is the least of his problems right now. 

"Oh well," Phil says, "Next time, huh? The sleep thing is more your kink anyway." 

"The… sleep thing?" Dan says. 

Phil chuckles again, warm and fond, like Dan is the one acting strangely. 

"Being woken up with a blow job," Phil says. "I swear I'll be able to do it before you wake up one of these days." 

Dan shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut over and over, trying to reconcile what the fuck is going on. 

"What's happening?" Dan says. 

"Whatever you want," Phil shrugs. "I'm pretty much up for anything right now." 

Dan is frozen. He can't move a muscle, caught between shock and incredulity. He's confused by this whole situation but there must be an explanation for it. This is Phil, he wouldn't be doing anything to harm Dan. 

It's possible that the bump on his head means he's missing some time, or perhaps he's simply dreaming all of this. So he doesn't react straight away. 

Not until Phil's eyes drop and his hand reaches out to the bedside table, sliding the drawer open. 

"I've got an idea," Phil says, and his voice is at least an octave lower than Dan ever remembers hearing it. 

He shivers, unsure exactly why. 

The moment Phil pulls the thick purple vibrator from the bedside drawer, Dan springs into action. 

"What the fuck?" he says, scrabbling backwards and off the bed. 

Phil is a flurry of movement too, getting to his knees and reaching out for Dan with his free hand. 

"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" He looks panicked, concerned. "We don't have to— Are you alright?" 

"I—" Dan can't find words. What the fuck is going on? His heart is hammering in his chest, his breath coming fast and shallow. 

He's dreaming. He has to be dreaming. He brings hand up to his face and scrubs his palm over his eyes. When that doesn't help, he shakes his head, tugs at his hair. 

"I'm dreaming," he says, "I've got to be dreaming." 

Phil drops the vibrator to the bed. It should be absurd, it _is_ absurd, but Dan can't see the funny side to it right now. He's too busy panicking. 

"Dan, I'm really worried. What's going on?" 

Phil shuffles forward, reaching out for Dan. His fingers skim the bare flesh of Dan's shoulder and it's enough to shake Dan from where he's rooted to the spot. 

"Leave me alone!" he shouts, and bolts for the door. 

When he exits his room he finds himself in a hallway resembling the one he is used to. It's all wrong, the doors not quite in the right place, and he isn't sure it all fits together correctly. It's so much like a dream, a nightmare, but he can't find any way to wake himself up. 

He just needs to find somewhere to go to wait it out. This all has to end eventually, right? 

He crosses the hallway, finding the stairs to the living room and running up them as fast as he can. Upstairs, the room is bright with early morning light, falling in shafts around their ever-closed blinds. His laptop is on the sofa. It strikes him as odd, but it's plausible that in his dreams he would make his laptop be precisely where he needs it to be when he needs it.

Picking it up, and opening it, is just a distraction. He can't hear Phil coming up behind him and he hopes that he's got the message to just leave Dan alone for a while. 

Surely Dan's concussed brain wouldn't make Phil the villain in his nightmare. Surely having Dan wake up to Phil shirtless in his bed rabbiting on about blowjobs and then springing a vibrator on him, is more than enough trauma for his fucked up psyche to provide. 

That is the last time he knocks himself out while reading smut about him and his best friend. 

His laptop is still loaded on the website he'd been on in the bath. It isn't the story he'd been reading, though, it's a different one. 

He tries clicking into the address bar, wanting to go to something, anything, else. He absolutely does not need to be reading about him and Phil getting it on right now. He still has the image of Phil, shirtless with messy hair, kneeling between his legs, fingers curled into his waistband. 

He shivers, jamming on the trackpad, trying to make his laptop respond, but it won't. It's frozen, or stuck, and Dan tries clicking on various shortcuts, trying to make something happen. But the website isn't having any of it, it glares out at him stubbornly until he exits out of the window entirely. 

As he does, everything fades, and the world goes black once again.


	4. Chapter Four

There is a rush of air around his ears, a tug behind his navel, and Dan opens his eyes. He finds himself standing up now, when he'd been sitting only a second ago but with no memory of getting up. It feels all kinds of wrong as the force of the floor comes up under his feet suddenly and his body lurches, stumbling sideways into something solid. 

There's a loud vibrating noise from all sides and he thinks he can still hear the faint click of his fingers on his laptop, but he isn't in his living room anymore. He's somewhere else. Somewhere _loud._

"Hey! Watch it Howell." he hears from his right, from the body he's stumbled into as he tries to keep his legs supporting him. 

Dan looks up but he can't quite work out what he's seeing. There is a flurry of activity all around him and he's having trouble focussing on any one thing. His heart is hammering in his chest and he has a rising headache, a throbbing in his left temple.

He's in a wide open room, a loud rumbling car is revving over and over in the corner. It's low to the ground, open top, wheels large and imposing. He's in a hanger or a garage or...something. 

_What is happening?_

Only second ago he'd been in his own house. he's sure of it. Perhaps he's gone mad. His version of reality feels thin, fragile, like he doesn't trust his own mind to tell him what is real anymore. 

"Hey," the voice snaps again, "What are you playing at?" 

Dan finally looks up and yet again he feels his stomach roll over. 

"Fuck," he says, because it's Phil that's standing in front of him. He's wearing a racing jumpsuit adorned with about a hundred sponsorship patches and is apparently, readying himself for a formula one race. 

The expression on his face is familiar, the angry pinch of his mouth and the way his eyes are narrowed. He knows Phil's angry face, but this one is just shy of what he's used to. There's no warmth to it, no underlying layer of fondness. This is the one Phil gets when someone else pisses him off, the one he doesn't usually let himself have because he's too dedicated to remaining fair and reasonable. It's never been directed at Dan before.

"I'm--" Dan says, swaying again as the pain in his temple throbs.

"If this is some stupid attempt to distract me before the race, I've got to say it really is a bit pathetic," Phil says, an edge to his voice that makes Dan cringe and want to curl up somewhere far away.

This is surreal. Made more so by the fact that as he drops his head to look down at his shoes and to avoid Phil's angry gaze, he also appears to be wearing a jumpsuit. His in a garish shade of yellow. 

"I'm not--" he starts, "I just... Phil?"

Phil looks at him then, his brows pinched together above the bridge of his nose. A deep line Dan recognises, one he's seen too many times today. At home back on the couch when he'd encouraged Dan to have a bath, then in Phil's bedroom in whatever wild hallucination he was having before this one. 

"You're being serious," Phil says. 

"What?" 

"You're actually like... ill or something. For fucks sake, this is the last-- do you need me to get someone?" 

Dan looks over Phil's shoulder at the revving car and the commotion. There are so many people moving around. Some of thiem in jumpsuits like they appear to be, but also people attending to the cars, shouting at each other and gearing up for something. 

"No," Dan says, finally. "Don't get anyone. I'm fine, I'll be fine. I just got... um, dizzy." 

Phil gives a curt little nod. "Good," he says, "if you're sure. Don't use that as a reason later though when I'm first over the line." 

"What?" 

Phil rolls his eyes. "Are you sure you're okay? You're acting thicker than usual." 

"Look, Phil, I don't know what your problem is but I am having the weirdest day today. I was only having a bloody bath and suddenly I'm... what? A formula one racer?" 

"I don't know what your game is Howell, but you're not making any sense. And what's with calling me Phil? You never call me Phil." 

"I don't?" 

Dan doesn't know what all of this is. He's disorientated and beginning to think he's going mad, but he's just about at the point of going along with it all just to see if it becomes any clearer. 

"No Howell, you don't." 

"What do I usually call you?" Dan asks. 

Phil shakes his head and his eyes twitch into a squint for half a second. 

"I don't get what your game is," Phil says. 

"Yeah," Dan says, a sardonic laugh working its way out of his throat. "I don't either to be honest." 

"You're so weird," Phil says, and the corner of his mouth curves up just a fraction, like it's an action he hadn't intended but had been unable to stop. "Stop." 

"I wish I knew how," Dan says. 

"I've got to go do final checks," Phil says, "Are you sure you're... you know, alright or whatever?" 

"Do you normally dislike me?" Dan asks, trying to get the lay of the land. 

"What?" 

"Do you?" Dan presses. 

Wherever he is, whatever the hell is going on, this isn't his Phil. It looks like Phil, his name is obviously Phil, but it isn't him. His Phil wouldn't be caught dead in racing kit, let alone actually racing as Dan suspects this Phil is about to do. 

His dreams have skipped to a new scenario, a new nightmare or fantasy or whatever the fuck it is that's going on.

"We're just... Look Howell, I don't know what's made you all weird today but it's not like you like me either." 

"I don't?" 

"No," Phil insists, "You don't. You prowl around the paddock like you own the place and the rest of us are supposed to just fall in line. I get that you're the young new hotshot and I'm an old hat who you think is past his prime but get let's get one thing straight. This is my race, you might do well in the smaller stake events, but you're not up here on my level, alright? I can beat you out there fair and square any day of the week. And I intend to prove it." 

This isn't his Phil. This Phil is competitive, forceful, a _driver_ as hilarious as that is, but the biggest thing, the thing that sets him apart from the Phil he knows, his best friend, is that he doesn't like Dan. 

Dan didn't think before now that there would be a Phil in any universe that wouldn't be his best friend.

Shit. That's it. 

"Is there a computer somewhere around here?" Dan asks, suddenly. 

"What?" 

"Sorry. You can... yeah, you'll beat me or whatever. But... Is there a computer?"

Dan is frantic now, looking over his shoulder and pivoting on the balls of his feet. There must be a computer around here somewhere. If he can get to a computer he can look up... 

"Hey," Phil says, shooting a hand out to grab him hard on the shoulder. 

Even through his jumpsuit Dan can feel the warmth of it. He knows the span of Phil's fingers as well as he knows his own. It's not like they touch all the time but Phil is a tactile person. A shake or a slap to his shoulder when they are excited about videos games, or celebrating something, is a comfortable bit of familiar, something well known and often received. It makes him ache that his touch feels the same even though this is not his best friend, this is not his Phil. 

He suddenly feels homesick even though he doesn't really know why he isn't there. 

"What-- Hey, Howell, we'll get you a computer alright? Calm down." 

This is a different universe, Dan thinks. It's the only explanation. Well, it's that or he's gone mad, or he's dead, or he's dreaming. All of those are no less ridiculous than the idea that back in the bath he’d nearly electrocuted himself, knocked himself out, and is now somehow falling through alternate universes.

He almost laughs out loud at himself. It sounds like something from a really shitty action movie, some kind of superhero bullshit that he and Phil would laugh at but watch until the end anyway because they’d gone to the trouble of making popcorn and neither of them can be bothered to get the remote off the table. 

He needs to know how to get back. 

He wants to go home. Back to the couch and the repetitive social media, back to the boredom and the lack of purpose. Mostly, he just wants to go back to _his_ Phil, because this imitation of him is screwing with his brain in more ways than one. 

"Good," Dan says, thinking that if he can look it up somehow, there has to be something out there in the great vastness of the internet that tells him what he needs to do to make all of this stop.

"There's one in the tech's office," Phil says. "For the calibration of on-board monitors and stuff." 

Dan blinks and then nods like he understands what Phil just said. They make their way across the garage, past the angry-sounding car that looks alot like the one they’d seen back in Singapore not that long ago. For a hallucination, or an alternate reality or whatever the hell this is, it’s really calling on all of his memories. It even smells like petrol and exhaust fumes. 

“Here,” Phil says, opening a door on a tiny office located off the side behind a rack of large intimidating tyres. “But if you’re planning to wreck something and blame me for it, don’t bother.” 

Dan is half in the door and half out of it, rushing toward the laptop sat amidst a pile of papers, when Phil says that. He turns and looks up at Phil, not his Phil but still undeniably him despite what he now sees is a shorter haircut. Still black though, so he dyes his hair in this universe too. He wonders how much of that is just part of who he is. 

“Phil,” he says, softly. He thinks he should say something, because if he wakes up from this dream, or if by some miracle he finds something on google that will tell him how to duck out of an alternate reality you find yourself inexplicably wandering into, he won’t see this Phil again. “I know we don’t… get on… or something. But, you know, I think I’m just of a bit of a grumpy shit. Like if I’m walking around here like I own the place it’s probably because I feel really… sad. Or insecure. You should probably just talk to me.” 

“What?” 

He’s pleased to see that Phil’s confused expression in the same here as it would be back home. 

“I think we’d get on,” Dan says, “if you gave it a chance.” 

He can’t be sure, of course. He has no idea what the Dan in this universe is like or if it continues when he’s not dreaming it any more. Or… well, he has no idea about any of it. But he likes the idea of this Phil and the other Dan starting out as rivals and ending up as friends. It’s nice, that maybe despite however they start out they always find each other somehow. 

And isn’t that some fantastical nonsense. Worthy of all that twee fanfic he’d been reading in the bath. 

“Uh, maybe. I-- you’re weird.” Phil says. 

“Yeah,” Dan agrees. “I am. Now go, race prep or calibrate things or whatever.” 

Phil opens his mouth as if to say something, perhaps to expound on how weird Dan is and how wrong everything he just said was, but he seems to think better of it and just shakes his head faintly before walking away and leaving Dan to enter the office and sink into the desk chair. 

The laptop is old and it takes a good ten minutes before it’s booted up and the internet explorer page has loaded. Even then, it doesn’t load where he thinks it will. 

The screen glows out at him, a white website with a red banner. A familiar logo in the top left. 

“What that fuck?” Dan says to himself, seeing his own name amidst the underlined tags. 

He has no idea why it’s there or what the hell is going on and so he moves the mouse quickly to catch the red X in the top corner of the screen. The window blinks out and he has just enough time to see the phrase 'Formula One AU' amidst the block of text before his temples throb, there is a rush of air around his ears, and his vision goes blank. 

Oh. So… that’s it.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags for this chapter:** Vidcon, break up, envy

Dan feels sick. He’s sitting down this time when he opens his eyes but it takes him half a second to realise he isn’t home yet. He’s sat on the edge of a bed, plain white sheets and a mattress that is a little too firm. A hotel room. 

It looks familiar, maybe, but he’s been in a lot of hotel rooms over the years. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, dizzy and feeling the squeeze of a headache on either side of his head. He breathes in through his nose, bringing a hand up to squeeze at the back of his neck as it lets it out of his mouth. He groans aloud, rolling his neck to try and relieve some of the pressure but failing miserably. 

There is a loud knocking from behind him and he jumps at the sudden sound. 

It shouldn’t take as long as it does for him to realise it’s coming from the door to the room. He makes his way over, finding he weaves a little on unsteady legs but makes it without any major incident. 

It’s Phil at the door. Kind of. This one is not really Phil either, or at least not the Phil he’s used to. This Phil is at least five or so years younger than he knows him to be and he has way too much hair draping down over his forehead. 

“What are you doing?” Phil says as soon as Dan opens the door. 

“Huh?” Dan is not particularly articulate but then, who would be when faced with a version of your best friend who is clearly a lot younger than when you left him, in a hotel you don't remember checking into. 

“You didn’t come to the party, they made me come and get you.” 

Phil doesn’t sound happy about that. 

“What party?” Dan asks, because the whole ‘rolling with it’ thing last time clearly hadn’t gotten him home.

“VidCon closing party?” Phil says, a slight sneer in his voice, “ring any bells?” 

“VidCon?” 

Phil tucks his bottom lip in his mouth and bites down a bit. “Please, Dan,” he says, “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.” 

“I’m not,” Dan says, honestly.

“You are. Look, I know I’m not your favourite person right now. And I promise you can… I don’t know. Move out? When we get home? Whatever it is you’re planning to do.” 

“Move out?” 

“I don’t--” Phil clears his throat, his voice sounding croaky as he continues. “I can’t talk about this now. They made me come find you, they want you to come to the party. I know you might hate me but please, could you just come for a bit so they stop asking where you are? I can’t face it.” 

“What is going on?” Dan says. 

“I thought we were still going to be friends,” Phil says. 

“We are friends,” Dan insists, because they are. Aren’t they? 

Another new universe and another dynamic Dan needs to work out. He remembers the tag on the ao3 page just before the last universe blinked out of existence and he found himself here. He thinks that might have something to do with it, but he can’t fathom how or why or what that even means really.

It certainly doesn’t help him try to work out what is going on with this Phil. 

“You haven’t been acting like a friend,” Phil says. “You’ve spent the whole time running around after Tyler and Cat and Matt and god knows who else. I’m tired, Dan. I just want to go home.” 

Phil looks sad. The kind of sad that makes Dan ache too, deep and pressing in his chest. 

“Don’t,” Dan says, moving out into the hallway, “I’ll go to the party with you. I’m sorry.”

This universe feels raw. It’s sad and Phil looks young and delicate and Dan doesn’t know what’s going on. VidCon, he thinks, VidCon about five years ago? More? He doesn’t know. It puts them somewhere around 2012 or 2013. But it’s all wrong. Dan had woken up in a room with only one bed, and Phil had knocked at the door instead of letting himself in. And he knows that they shared a room those years. He remembers falling asleep to the sound of Phil’s breathing in the dark. It’s as comforting to him as anything ever will be, he thinks. 

Two tours around the world and numerous conventions and trips and events, he knows that sound. He knows he heard it those years as VidCon.

It’s all wrong. But then, they’re not formula one drivers or enemies either so while this universe might be rooted in what he knows is real, it isn’t the same. It isn’t. 

Especially since Phil seems to hate him, or he’s sad anyway, like Dan did something to him to make him that way. And moving out? 

Whatever this universe is, he doesn’t like it. 

If he’s dreaming, or whatever it is that’s causing him to make up these wild hallucinations, he wonders why his brain keeps conjuring scenarios where Phil hates him. He’s not thinking about the first one, the less he thinks about it the better because that was confusing on many many other levels he can’t even begin to wrap his head around.

Phil is silent as Dan closes the hotel room door behind them, and leads the way down the hall with Dan only a few steps behind him. They don’t walk side by side, their shoulders don’t brush in the casual familiar way he is used to and Dan hates it. 

The room they end up in isn't the same as Dan remembers either. It's not quite as big, or crowded, and the music isn't as loud, but it's still recognizably a Vidcon party. 

“Dan!” a voice calls and he hears Phil sigh next to him as he turns to see who is calling his name. 

“Cat?” He says. 

She is younger too. Her hair longer and darker and she looks… well, she looks like she wants to be here, like she belongs, so that's different in itself. 

“We wondered where you'd got to,” she says throwing her arms around him. 

That's strange. They're friends with Cat, sure, but she's never been that hands-on with him. He's a little ashamed that he looks around to see which camera she is playing up for, but finds there isn't one. 

Phil makes a quiet disgruntled sound next to him and Dan moves out of the reach of Cat’s arms, though why he gets the impression that’s what is causing Phil’s mood, he doesn’t know. Maybe that’s what it is, maybe the version of himself in this universe hasn’t been spending enough time with Phil, and that’s what he’s upset about. 

It suddenly strikes him that he doesn’t know where the Dan from this universe is. Maybe this Dan is back in his house and acting weird and Phil doesn’t know what the hell has gotten in to him. He hopes it isn’t anything bad, he hopes Phil will forgive him if he ever gets home. He’ll have to plead amnesia or something, there is no way he or anyone else is going to believe all of this. 

“You okay?” 

Tyler Oakley has now walked up next to him and he realises he’s staring over at Phil who has shuffled to the side to put some distance between them. 

“Huh?”

“You looked like you went somewhere for a minute,” Tyler says, pressing a drink into his hand. It’s some kind of coke with what he suspects it a spirit mixed in it. It isn’t a drink he’d normally have at all. 

Tyler from his universe would know that. 

“I’m fine,” Dan says.

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” Tyler says, “I know it must be difficult, with the break up and everything.”

“Break up?” 

“Dan.” 

“What?” 

Tyler sighs and bumps him with his shoulder. It’s a bit funny, because Tyler is so much shorter than him that he kind of ends up nudging him on the arm rather than presses their shoulders together like Phil would if he did that, but he’s trying to be nice so Dan swallows down the laugh. 

“I know you and Phil broke up,” Tyler says, “Phil… well, he was a bit of a mess yesterday so he told me about it.” 

“We… oh holy shit…” Dan looks over at Phil who is watching other people have a conversation like he’s joining in, but his eyes look a little glazed, like he isn’t paying attention at all. He looks sad, so desperately painfully sad, and Dan suddenly understands their conversation from before. “We did.” 

“Can I…” Tyler looks up at him, his shoulders set a bit more square as if steeling himself for a tricky conversation. “Can I say something?” 

“Er, yes.”

“You need to go a bit easier on him,” Tyler says.

“Um…”

“I mean, I don’t wanna pry, lord knows you boys must have talked it all out. I know you’re trying to be friends but… you’re not exactly being fair to him.” 

“I don’t… how so?” 

“Well, frankly it’s this whole Cat business.” 

“Cat?” 

Dan looks over at Cat who is sipping on a glass of wine. She meets his eye almost immediately and gives him a full smile with all those white american teeth, and waves with a little waggle of her fingers. 

“See, it’s that,” Tyler says, nodding over to Cat. “I don’t know if you’re serious about getting it together with her, or if it’s like a rebound thing… I know you’re a good person so I don’t think you’d be doing it on purpose just to hurt him.” 

“I’m not,” Dan says. “It’s nothing. I don’t… it’s not any of those things.” 

“Well, hun, you should probably tell Phil that. He’s not taking it too well.” 

“Phil?”

Tyler rolls his eyes a little bit then like Dan is being thick. “Yes, Dan. You broke up with him, and then you flirted with Cat. A lot. You can’t blame the poor guy for being upset.” 

Dan doesn't respond. Mostly because okay, he can accept that in this universe that he and Phil had some kind of romantic relationship, because if in the last one they’d been enemies and formula one drivers and the one before that they’d… well. Then anything is possible. 

“You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed,” Tyler says, when Dan doesn’t answer him right away. “God, Dan, I noticed before you even came here. You’re not coming across so great online right now. Even your audience is starting to notice.” 

Oh. 

Dan thinking of the split second before he’d left the last universe. Closing the tab on the fanfiction website, seeing Formula One AU written next to his own name. His audience, and their perception. Of 2012, of their friendship and what that audience might have thought had been going on. He thinks about how everything that’s happened to him is some kind of… trope. Elements of his life, or what could have been his life, boiled down to commonly-used tags or things people might like to see.

It’s why the room doesn't look the same, it’s why Cat is acting differently and why the small details of this particular trip aren’t as he remembers them. It’s like this whole scenario has been crafted by someone who had heard about VidCon but had never actually been. Someone who might like the idea, or believe the idea, of 2012 and the mythology built up around it. 

"Is there a computer here?" Dan asks. 

Tyler doesn't look happy with him. He clearly wants to have some kind of big discussion, there's obviously meant to be some sort of turning point here, or Dan is supposed to reveal his motivations behind… breaking up with Phil. Or whatever. 

It's mad. It's all completely crazy and Dan can't believe he's going along with it. Possibly he's had some sort of psychotic break and is in a mental asylum somewhere imagining all of this. 

"A computer?" Tyler says, "Why?" 

"I want to Google something," Dan says. 

"Use your phone. God, Dan, I knew Phil said you'd been really horrible about all of this but you really are being a dick." 

Dan ignores him. He hopes that his actions aren't having too much of an impact, but he can't let this story play out. He needs to work with his theory that he can somehow get out of here. Last time he'd closed the tab and woken up somewhere else. 

It's not a lot, but it's all he has to go on. 

Tyler walks away, his shoulders tense and his face like thunder. If Dan ever gets back to his own universe, or if the bout of crazy he's come down with that's making him invent all of this in his head ever comes to an end, he makes a note to himself to call Tyler and catch up. They haven't spoken in a while. 

He opens the browser on his phone and sure enough, the page it loads to is the same red and white webpage he's getting so used to seeing. This one is loaded on a different story, the tags at the top reading _break up_ and _VidCon_ and _getting back together_. 

Huh. So at the end of all of this, after Cat has apparently flirted with him, and after Dan has been so horrible to Phil at VidCon they get back together? 

Dan looks up and over at Phil. He's still not paying attention to whatever conversation is going on around him, and he still looks so so sad. He deserves the happy ending that's coming, but if Dan stays here it isn't going to happen. 

He doesn't fit in this universe. He doesn't fit in the one before or the one before that. He wants his own universe back, but at the moment he has no idea how to do that. 

All he knows is that the browser in his hand won't let me him navigate to any other web page. This story has to play out, or it has to end. 

Dan closes the window, and the wind rushes in his ears with a _whoosh_.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags for this chapter:** tour bus, friends with benefits (players choice)

Everything is vibrating when he wakes up. He's laying on something not entirely uncomfortable, he's warm and cocooned and there is a pleasant weight over his waist. 

He blinks, his head twinging in pain, feeling a little dizzy and nauseous from the world rushing out from underneath him so many times. 

It's dark, a sliver of flashing light falling in a strip across the compact room, picking out the edge of a TV unit, drawers, a floor littered with discarded clothing. There are blinds pulled down on a window across the way, and he recognises it immediately. 

He's warm, sticky, weighed down and, he realises, completely naked beneath a thin duvet. 

He's aware of a huff of breath against the back of his neck, and how each part of his body is pressed back against a pliable wall of soft skin over firm muscle. 

He knows without looking, of course, but he turns to see who it is anyway. 

Blue eyes flicker open as he turns, his hair longer, as it had been last time they were in this room, but shoved up on his head by sleep, a style he'd never worn the last time they were in this room. He's squinting, without glasses or contact lenses again, and his face has a line down one side where it's been pushed into the pillow, but he looks more like his Phil than any of the others have. 

Apart from the first one, but Dan is trying not to think about that.

"Huh?" Phil says, disorientated and adorable. "Where are we?" 

"Somewhere in the middle of America would be my guess," Dan says. 

"Funny," Phil says. 

He hasn't taken his arm away where it's nestled in the curve of Dan's waist. His palm has flattened against the dip in Dan's spine and his thumb is tracing a soft arch back and forth over the divots on his hip. 

"We're naked," Dan says, mostly to acknowledge to himself that yes, that is what's happening, "in the back of our tour bus. On our first world tour."

"First?" Phil chuckles, "you planning another one?" 

Dan should pull away. It would be the sensible thing to do, the sane thing, but he figures if his brain insists in conjuring these things, if he's being tossed from universe to universe designed and imagined by writers with nothing better to do with their time, then he's going to have to learn to just go with some stuff. 

He hasn't tried that yet. All he's done so far is run as soon as he's got the play of the land. Maybe there's something to just seeing what the point of all this is.

He shakes his head, "no," he says, "I'm not planning anything." 

That's true enough. They hadn't been planning anything beyond their first tour back then. They'd been going with the flow, incredulous that they'd gotten even this far, that the weird hobby Phil had started in his bedroom had grown into a career where they got to ride in a tour bus and travel the world. 

The naked part is different though. 

Dan hadn't slept in this bed. He'd sat on it enough to recognise the room from this angle, watching old movies from the drawer below the ancient TV, but this had been Phil's room. They'd told everyone that a game of rock paper scissors had decided it, but really it was just unfortunate that the bus only had one bedroom, and Phil always got so motion sick. 

Dan had been a good friend and spent his nights in one of the bunks. 

Their second tour had been fairer, but not as nice for Phil's health. They spent enough nights in the dark of their own bunks texting back and forth while Phil's stomach rolled and Dan over thought the future and everything that came after the tour. They got each other through those bad nights, as they had all the ones that had come before. 

"I could plan some things," Phil says, and then his eyebrows do a weird wriggle that sends Dan into a fit of giggles. 

He tries to keep his voice down, because the world is hushed, an unknown American road zipping along outside, lighting them up with intermittent street lights, and he doesn't want to pop this bubble. 

This Phil doesn't hate him, and it shocks him how much of a relief that is, how much he wants to cling onto it. He doesn't want to be in a world where Phil hates him. 

Phi laughs too, and his hand moves down, dropping low so that his fingers skim the curve of Dan's arse cheek. Dan stops laughing immediately. 

"Is that a come on?" Dan says, thinking of all the story tropes and cliche plot points that could have thrust him into this particular position. 

"Could be," Phil says, hand splayed out, pulling Dan a little closer. "If you want it to be." 

Dan hasn't seen this side of Phil. He's seen him flirt, of course, but he usually relies on his charming-but-slightly-odd thing. It's endearing. 

This is different. This is Phil at his most intense, directed focus, a deep voice and a soft smile. Large hands and silky skin. 

Dan doesn't know if it's a real reflection of Phil's temperament like this, or if it's completely fabricated in the mind of a sexually frustrated writer. Either way, it's working. 

"I--" Dan says, and Phil leans in. 

He tucks his head into Dan's neck, and the warm wet heat of his tongue presses feather-light to Dan's pulse point before a gentle scrape of teeth follows. 

The breath catches in Dan's throat. _it's not real,_ he tells himself, _it's not real._

But if it's not real, there's no reason why he can't go with it. 

If this is all happening in his head how is it any different to jacking himself off in the bath to fanfiction? He's in fanfiction now, experiencing it in first person, real-time, technicolor, HD perfection. 

But it still isn't real. And if Dan wants to get off inside his own head, with teasing teeth on his neck and a broad hand dipping fingers in between his arse cheeks, regardless of who they belong to, then— why the fuck not. 

"I'm so glad we decided to do this," Phil says, his fingers catching on Dan's hole. He's still slick, it appears, which begs the question of whether Dan even starts these stories at the beginning, or if he's just being dropped into the middle of a narrative already in progress. 

"Hm," he hums, distracted by Phil rolling them over and fitting himself on top of Dan in one smooth movement, "do what?" 

"The whole friends with benefits thing," Phil laughs, and kisses down Dan's neck, onto his collarbone, coming to wrap his lips around a nipple and graze it gently with his teeth. 

Dan freezes underneath him. Phil is naked too, and his hardness is pressing into Dan's thigh and the ridiculousness of that has caught up with him and it comes out of his mouth in a high pitched, delirious laugh. 

"Was I not meant to phrase it that way?" Phil says, lifting his head, returning to Dan's eyeline. 

His face is a little flushed, his hair is a mess. He looks like he did back in that first universe, only this time Dan isn't running.

"That's not… it's fine," Dan says, "it's all crazy to me anyway."

"You're thinking too much," Phil says. 

Dan sighs, "probably. Or imagining too much. I'm not really sure how to make it stop to be honest."

"I can fix that," Phil says.

Dan doesn't have time to think of a witty retort, or tell Phil that actually he'd been talking about the fact that he's pretty sure that he's having some sort of fever dream about fanfiction, or possibly it's magic, or— 

Because Phil ducks his head under the duvet, hot breath ghosting over his sticky, sensitive skin, and licks a wet stripe from the base of his cock right to the tip. 

"Hng," Dan says, gracefully. 

Phil chuckles, Dan feels the gust of it on his dick, hot and exciting.

"That did it," Phil says.

He sounds far too smug, even with his voice muffled by the duvet. Dan lifts the corner of it and is treated to the same sight as he was earlier in the day, Phil, ruffled from sleep, shirtless, and laying between his legs, mouth inches from his hard cock. 

"Shut up," Dan says, and his voice distinctly sounds like _get on with it_. He's not sure where that came from. 

Phil just grins up at him, blue eyes shining in the darkness of beneath the sheets. Street lights flash at the edges of the window blinds, throwing those sharp shafts of light across the room periodically. It must be the middle of the night, one of those they'd spent on the road, fast asleep as middle America slipped by beneath the tyres. 

In this universe, Dan isn't laying in his cramped bunk all alone and deep in sleep. In this universe, Phil is dropping his head, slipping Dan's cock into the tight wet heat of his mouth and flicking his tongue over the slit in a way that makes Dan hiss and drop his head back onto the pillow. 

"Oh my god," Dan says, mostly to himself. 

Phil answers by sliding further down his length, sucking firmly, and brings his hand up to cup his balls, rolling them in his long fingers. 

"Fuck," Dan says. 

Dan throws his arm over his eyes, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow, and twists the fingers of his other hand into the fabric of Phil's pillow. It's too much, Phil's mouth is tight and wet and perfect, and he seems to know exactly what to do to make Dan an incomprehensible mess. 

Friends with benefits, Dan thinks, is one hell of a trope. 

It isn't long until the tension starts building, his thighs twitch and there is a low coiling tension in his gut, pressure building and building. 

"Phil…" Dan breathes. 

When Phil doesn't respond, Dan drops his arm, feeds it under the duvet and slides his fingers into the silky strands of Phil's hair. He shifts his hips, unable to stop the subtle thrust into Phil's mouth, and he feels himself nudge against the back of Phil's throat. 

There's a quiet, muffled, gagging sound and Phil pulls back just a bit. 

"Sorry," Dan says and Phil continues on, but he hums low in his throat, a clear _it's fine._. 

And that's what does it. That's what makes Dan realise that different universe or not, fever or not, magic or not, this is _Phil_. Dan has heard him make that 'it's fine' hum a bunch of times, when Dan accidentally bumps into him going through a doorway at home, or when he pulls his headphones out of his laptop but the music continues, a touch too loud. 

It's a sound littered into their daily lives, a sound he's familiar with and would be able to pick out with a blindfold and from far away. It's a Phil sound. 

Somehow that knowledge feels dirty, shameful, but it's also mixing with the sensation of Phil sucking at him so long and so good, and it's only making it hotter. Harder to hold on. 

"Ah, ah," Dan pants, his hips moving again. 

This time Phil is expecting it, and he doubles his efforts, dropping his mouth down onto Dan again and again, while pressing one set of fingers into his hip bone, his short, blunt nails leaving tiny crescents on his skin. His other hand is wrapped around the base of Dan's cock, stroking what he can't reach in time with the movements of his head. 

Dan had no fucking hope at all. 

He tugs at Phil's hair, but Phil doesn't move. 

"Phil," he says, tugging a little more, "Phil, I'm gunna, I'm—" 

Phil doesn't move, but he does make that sound again. The one that means 'It's fine', and Dan loses it. 

His vision goes white behind his eyelids as he screws his eyes shut, the pressure in his belly twisting, turning, and then finally bursting out of him as he spills into Phil's mouth. And Phil takes it like a champ, he works Dan through it with his hand, flattening his tongue and swallowing him down with what seems like practised effort. 

Dan is dizzy with it, incredulous that there is a universe out there, or one imagined in someone's head, where Phil has had enough experience with his dick to make him feel this fucking good. 

"Shit," Dan says as he comes down, and Phil's flushed face pops up from underneath the duvet, draped over his head like a bonnet. 

"Good?" Phil says. 

"Hmm." 

Phil smiles at him, his eyes warm and fond. "Did it work?" 

"Huh? Did what work?" 

"Did you stop thinking so much?" 

Dan regards him for a second. He looks like Phil, he sounds like him and fuck if he doesn't make the same noises as him but the fact is, this isn't Phil. Not the one he's used to anyway. But it still makes him feel weird, a little squirmy, to think that he let it get this far. That he's essentially lying to this version, or figment, or… whatever. 

This person is still _a_ Phil if not _his_ Phil, and he hates that he'd lie to him in any way, but he is. Phil thinks that he is the Dan that belongs in this universe, the one that agreed to some kind of friends with benefits arrangement where they have sex on their tour bus and laugh about it afterwards like it's just a distraction from Dan's constant cycle of anxious thoughts. 

Like it doesn't mean anything at all. 

"Yeah," Dan says, because he wants Phil to think that this was worth something, at least. And not just his indulging in something he's been thinking about for longer that he'll probably admit. "It worked." 

"Good," Phil says. 

Phil wriggles up out of the nest of cotton bedding and flops back down next to him. Dan's eyes are drawn to where Phil's cock is flushed hard against his stomach. He's thick, and long, a darker pink near the tip and a nest of coarse dark hair at the base with a slight reddish tint. Dan can't stop looking, and thinking, and _wanting_.

"You gunna return the favour?" Phil asks. 

Dan looks up finally to find Phil looking at him with amusement. 

"You look like you want to eat me whole," Phil says, "no teeth this time though? That's your thing, not mine." 

Dan doesn't want to get stuck on the point debating whether or not teeth are his thing, and puts it down to the minute subtleties between the Dan of this universe and himself. Or, at least, that's what he's choosing to believe, and not that he does have some buried-deep pain kink he hasn't yet discovered about himself. 

But he does need a little room to think, just for a second. 

"I'm just gunna go to the bathroom," Dan says, "alright? Just for a second?" 

Phil waves him off, and there's that 'it's fine' noise again. Dan swings into a sit on the edge of the bed so that he doesn't have to think about it. 

He tugs on a pair of jogging bottoms that he finds on the floor. They're black, so they could be either his, or Phil's, he isn't sure. But then, it's not like it matters, they've shared a lot more than clothing in this universe. 

He slips his phone off the side and into his pocket while Phil is looking the other way and ducks out of the room. The bus moves underneath him as he makes his way to the tiny, cramped toilet and pulls the flimsy door closed behind him. 

The light that goes on overhead is harsh, and he finds his flushed, startled face looking back at him from the mirror next to the toilet. He looks much the same as he expects to, but the world feels unsteady in a way that has nothing to do with the movement of the bus. He's rocked backwards and forwards by it, swaying on the spot, keeping contact with his own eyes in the mirror. 

It isn't that he took it too far, it isn't that he had sex with Phil, or that it's a non-romantic arrangement, all of that is just secondary. The thing that's making him feel so shaken, so unstable, is that he'd enjoyed it. He'd looked into Phil's familiar blue eyes, and heard all of those familiar noises and he'd still come his brains out. Not in spite of it, _because_ of it. 

He realises, with a kind of clarity he hadn't been expecting, that he's attracted to Phil. 

Maybe he always has been, maybe this is the thing that's been raging inside of him and making him feel like something is missing despite having two world tours under his belt and a pretty decent career. 

Phil. 

He's attracted to Phil. 

With that revelation swimming in his head he can't go back in that room. He can't crawl back in that bed with a naked, willing and waiting Phil, lit by the intermittent American streetlights and shrouded in blankets that smell like the both of them. He can't. 

He takes his phone out of his pocket, taps the safari app so that the red and white web page opens. He spots _friends with benefits_ and _tour_ at the top of the page for just a moment. 

And then _whoosh_.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **tags for this chapter:** cuddling for warmth, dub-con (interpreted as drunk sex), intercrural

Dan comes to in another hotel room. He knows it's a hotel by the frankly offensive pattern on the bedspread, and he knows its a cheap one by the quality of literally everything else. It maybe looks like one of the motels they'd stayed in during their first tour, but he doesn't recognise it as a specific one. 

It's dark at the single window, night has fallen and an unfamiliar stretch of road runs along outside while a blizzard swirls in the sky. He can hear the riotous rush of wind outside, ominous and frightening.

It takes him a moment to get his bearings, dropped in the middle of the room, a little dizzy from the journey as he always is, but he can tell immediately that he's alone. It's also freezing. 

He's not sure what to do when a story doesn't present itself straight away, what happens in the gaps between a narrative, or is he supposed to be doing something that he's not living up to right now? 

The only thing he can focus on is the cold chill in the air, it nips at the exposed skin of his arms and he strides over to the wardrobe, flinging it open to see if there is anything in there he can put on. 

It's empty. 

On the top shelf is an extra blanket in a putrid shade of yellow-beige, scratchy to the touch and smelling a little musty, but he pulls it down into his arms. Behind him, the door opens and a gust of frigid air comes in along with Phil. He isn't dressed for the weather, the snow flakes sitting heavy and glistening on the shoulders of a bright blue sweater. 

He doesn't know how to explain the tight coil of shame low in his stomach. Flitting from the last world to this one is enough to send the world off its axis, to make his heart beat a little faster and sending his blood pumping around his body. It warms him a little, which can't be a bad thing. 

Phil shakes his hair out, ice falling out of it, flicking against the wall and the carpet. His hair is closer to what Dan remembers from his own universe, short and flipped up into a quiff. Which means this isn't meant to be during their first tour, and the hotels they'd stayed in on the second one were nothing like this so— 

This is somewhere else. Somewhere not based in a reality at all. 

"Shut the door," Dan says, for something to say.

Phil does, and while the direct flow of air is stopped, it doesn't help the alarming temperature of the room, and Dan shivers. 

"The electrics are out," Phil says, "the woman at the front desk said it might be tomorrow before they can call anyone to fix it. So, no heating for the night." 

Dan shifts the blanket in his arms and unfurls it, "found a blanket," he says, like that might be helpful. 

"I can't believe we lost our luggage," Phil fumes, pacing a bit further into the room. "I want to put on like, five million hoodies." 

Well, that explains the lack of clothes. 

"Can I share your blanket?" Phil says. 

He doesn't wait for Dan to answer before he's all the way in Dan's space, taking the blanket from Dan's fingers and trying to drape it across them both. 

"Um—" Dan says. 

"Yeah, this isn't working. Maybe we should lay down?" 

Dan looks over at the hideous bedspread and it occurs to him for the first time that there is only one bed in the middle of the room, pushed against the wall. It's a double, not a king, so there will be hardly any space for the two of them to stretch out, it'll force them to sleep in each other's space whether they want to or not should they actually be able to drop off.

Dan wants to roll his eyes, because as far as scenarios go this one is only designed for one thing, and one thing only. He's got to hand it to fic writers, they know how to twist a story to get to the bit they want as quick as they want. No apologies or the need for too much realism. 

One bed, no heating, and snowed in. The perfect combination. 

Phil spreads the blanket out on the bed on top of the other layers and pulls all of them back to expose the off-white colour of the fitted sheet beneath. Not the most appealing, but beggars can't be choosers. 

"Getting in?" Phil asks. 

Dan bites down gently on his bottom lip. His head is full of the last Phil, the sensation of his tongue and the feeling of his soft hair under Dan's fingers. He has to shake his head and push it away, because he really is cold and the bed, however bland and dingy, looks far warmer than standing in the middle of a unheated motel room during a snowstorm. 

Dan climbs onto the opposite side of the mattress and Phil flops the layers of blankets back down over both of them. He's immediately aware of Phil's body next to his. Phil's skin is cold, his arm pressed up against Dan's, but their is the potential for their body heats to combine and make a warm pocket in this otherwise frozen landscape. 

Dan sighs. 

It's not the mattress or the blankets making it comfortable, it's Phil. He relaxes against the pillow and he can feel Phil's fingers drumming on the mattress, a soft staccato rhythm uneven and distracted. 

"I'm sorry for how all of this went down," Phil says, 

"What?" Dan says, "it's not your fault." 

"It is," Phil insists. He's starting at the ceiling, "If I hadn't wanted to drive out here, if I'd thought about putting petrol in the car, if I hadn't left the suitcases on the pavement while I went into the hotel—" 

"Phil," Dan says, and he rolls over so that he's facing Phil. "It's fine. It'll be fine. The electrics will get fixed tomorrow, the storm will let up, and we can go to a petrol station, get some petrol and then we can sort all of this out." 

Phil is silent, still staring at the old light fitting, fingers still tap tap tapping on the bed. 

"I guess," he says, "we're still stuck here tonight though."

Dan reaches out, dropping his hand over the top of Phil's, stilling his fingers. His skin is still ice cold, but it's starting to warm up. 

"We can find something to entertain ourselves with," Dan says. 

He doesn't mean it to sound as suggestive as it does, the whole scene must be getting to him a bit. Thankfully, Phil seems oblivious and moves right along.

"Really? With no electric? There's no TV, no WiFi, we can't even charge our phones and I'm pretty sure mine is dead." 

"We can find something else." 

Phil looks at him then with a sceptical raise of his eyebrow. Maybe he isn't completely oblivious.

Dan lifts his head, looking around the small, barren room. There isn't much, an old TV that obviously won't turn on, a water-spotted kettle and small sachets of coffee which, again, they can't hope to use without power. But his eyes alight on the small mini-fridge situated in the bottom of the open wardrobe. 

"Hang on," Dan says, climbing out of the bed. 

It is colder out here than it had been in the bed, so perhaps it was a good idea to get in there after all, regardless of how touchy it makes Dan. How much he's longing to reach out across the mattress and do god knows what. 

"What are you doing?" Phil asks. 

"Shh." 

Dan opens the mini-fridge. It's the only thing that looks vaguely like it's from this century in the room, but it isn't as fancy as one of those spring-loaded ones that charge you automatically. He loads his arms up with what he can carry and goes back to the bed. Once there, he climbs in awkwardly, not using his hands, and then lets his bounty fall onto the bedspread with the tinkle of glass hitting glass. 

"Really?" Phil says. 

"We've got time to kill," Dan says, picking up one of the tiny bottles of vodka and inspecting it. "You got a better idea?" 

It's possible that he's stalling this story, or perhaps he's just trying to avoid thinking about everything that's happened to him today too closely. He doesn't want to go round and round about the Phil thing, and he can't take the laughter lines at the edges of Phil's eyes, or the pink of his mouth, the subtle creases in his forehead. It's all too familiar and lovely and with the new knowledge that Dan is painfully attracted to him, maybe has been for a while, it's all just a bit too much for him sober. 

Dan picks up a bottle of orange juice, also from the minibar, and swallows a few mouthfuls out to make room for him to tip the mini bottle of vodka into it. He re-caps it and shakes it to mix the two things together. 

"Come on," Dan says, "what are you scared of?" 

Phil sighs, softly, before picking up a small bottle of lemonade and one of Southern Comfort. Sweet, tangy, the perfect choice for him. 

They make their way through the small pile of spirits, mixing them with the few soft drinks until they run out, and then they switch to drinking them straight. The conversation falls into an easy banter that Dan is used to, and if he lets himself he could almost believe that he's back in his own universe, that none of this crazy stuff happened. That he isn't out of place, out of time, out of answers as to how the fuck to make it stop. 

A couple more drinks, and he wonders if he could just stay here, just make this his new universe, but then Phil will look at him, or say something and while it's close to everything he knows, it isn't quite the same. This isn't his Phil, but it is a Phil, and he wants him all the same. 

"I'm actually having fun," Phil says. 

They're still under the duvet, and the blanket, pressed together along one side, the heat gathering around their legs. The bed is littered with empty bottles that ping off each other melodically as Phil crosses one ankle over the other and tips back another sip out of a bottle of whiskey. 

He makes a face as it goes down, scrunching his eyes and sticking out his tongue against the burn. Dan laughs at him. 

"You look like it," Dan says. 

"No," Phil slurs, "I mean that today was awful, like… objectively awful, with the snow and the car and the suitcase getting stolen."   
Phil finishes his bottle, discards it, and lays back against the thin hotel pillow, his hair fanning out, cheeks flushed, eyes so blue, swimming and unfocussed. 

"But this is nice," he says. "I like this." 

Dan doesn't think that he means being pressed up against Dan, warm and comfortable. He doesn't think he means how Phil's feet are tipped towards him and Dan can feel the hard bones of his toes, the joints where they bend, on the sole of his foot. Dan flexes his own toes, rubbing them across the top of Phil's foot, and Phil leans into the touch. 

Phil hums, and his eyes slip shut. "S'nice." 

"Yes," Dan agrees, feeling floaty and light, carefree and relaxed. "It is." 

Dan knows that objectively this is a bad idea, but he has too little restraint left when he turns his head towards Phil and lets his forehead drop onto Phil's shoulder. Phil doesn't shove him away immediately, and Dan breathes into the exposed skin of his collarbone where his sweater is tugged down and away. 

He smells like Phil. His skin is warm where they've built up their body heat together, where the movement of their own bodies and the alcohol in their bloodstreams has made them overheated, treacle-slow and languid. 

Phil hums in the back of his throat and tilts his head, exposing the pale column of his neck. It isn't an explicit invitation, but Dan's head is swimming with the scent of Phil, the memory of his mouth around his cock, and the knowledge that all of this is probably happening in his own head anyway. He can't help himself as he dips his head forward, and brings his lips to the soft, smooth skin right in front of him. 

"Hm," Phil says, eyes still closed. 

He's not asleep, or at least Dan doesn't think he is. He can't be sure. 

Phil's skin tastes warm under his tongue, slightly salty, a tang of travelling all day, wandering around outside. Dan presses his mouth a little further down, lingering longer, flicking his tongue against Phil's pulsepoint. It beats, steady and strong. 

Phil's breathing catches. Dan pauses, because maybe he should stop this, Phil could be responding to his ministrations, or he could be entirely asleep Dan isn't sure. He presses his mouth back to Phil's skin, lingering against his collarbone and this time Phil audibly sighs. 

Emboldened, Dan continues pressing his lips to Phil's skin like he can't help himself. Maybe he can't. 

It's all rushing through his head, the revelations pulling low in his stomach. A dark, swirling attraction to his best friend, so familiar to him and yet brand new in this context. He could be having a psychotic break, he could be going crazy and imagining all of this so why shouldn't he just give himself over to the want coursing through him? 

Under their blankets it's warm and humid, sweat collects on their skin and Dan can feel waves of it radiating from Phil's body. The world is fuzzy at the edges, booze soaked and heady, and he throws his hesitation out of the window. 

"Phil?" He whispers, "Phil, are you awake?" 

Phil's breathing hitches again, and Dan suspects he is awake and listening, perhaps afraid revealing this will pop the bubble, just as Dan is afraid that asking will do the same. 

"Please be awake," Dan says. 

Phil's eyes flutter open. He's clearly just as drunk as Dan and equally as ready to make a bad decision in the rising darkness of the room. Phil's fingers reach out and skim the arch of Dan's hip where his shirt has ridden up. 

Dan moves without thinking any more. He follows his instincts and the pounding of his pulse in his ears, a rush of blood and a hard cock pulling him forward to claim Phil's mouth.

Phil let's out a low sort of growl that Dan hasn't heard his make before and it's so new and so unexpected that Dan matches it with a short, quiet one of his own. 

"Dan…" Phil gasps, hands pushing under Dan's shirt, on the small of his back, his waist, pushing at the waistband of his jeans. "Dan, can I—" 

"Yes," Dan says, because he'll say yes to anything at this point. To a Phil that wants Dan as much as Dan wants him. "Yes, yes." 

Phil pops the button on his jeans, and tugs down. Everything is fast and jerky, a little uncoordinated because even under sheets in the dark they are the same people they always are. Dan reaches out to do the same and is surprised that he manages it without too much trouble. 

Phil is still on his back, and Dan is curled into his side, hard, throbbing cock pushing consistently at his hip. 

"Do you wanna…" Phil is saying, and Dan nods along even though he doesn't know what he's agreeing to. 

He'd do anything Phil asks because he hasn't got the capacity to think of a reason not to. 

Then Phil is rolling away from him, and Dan is scared for the tiniest second that this means it's over, that Phil has come to his senses. But then Phil is reaching back and pulling on Dan's hip, tugging so that Dan shuffles forward to lay himself flat against Phil's body. 

He's warm. The combination of racing hearts and alcohol in their bloodstream makes them unsteady, uninhibited, and overheated. It's sweaty and hot and Dan's cock slides easily into the dip of Phil's thighs, to the space under the curve of his ass. Dan sucks in a breath and whines. 

"Shit," he says, unsure what Phil means, what he's asking for. "I don't have… we can't…"

"Just want to feel you," Phil says, and for some reason that makes Dan feel like a teenager, giddy with unexplored possibilities. He wants to feel Phil too. 

He lines himself up so that the squeeze of Phil's thighs is around him, and the tease of his teeth finds the side of Phil's throat. Phil arches into it, pushing his ass back and clenching his muscles so that Dan's cock pushes tightly into the hot, sweaty space Phil has created for him. 

Dan sees stars. He could cry for how good it is but settles for panting wet heat against Phil's neck and running his hand down the wrinkles in Phil's jumper finding the hem and yanking it up to expose more of Phil's skin to his reach. 

Maybe he should be scared. Maybe he should be having a mild crisis over what he's about to do, but he's not. It feels easy with Phil, to move with him in a rhythm that's driving him crazy and to take Phil's cock in his hand and feel the weight of it on his palm. 

He's mostly just exploring, running his fingers over the silky skin, already beading with moisture, before wrapping his entire hand around it fully and stroking him like he would himself. 

"Ah, Dan," Phil says, and he pivots back against Dan's cock and then forward into his hand. 

Dan feels like he has Phil pinned to him, and Phil is trusting him enough to allow himself to be pinned, to give himself over to Dan and know he'll take care of him. 

Dan doesn't want to disappoint. 

He moves his hand, trying different speeds and twisting slightly on the up stroke. He learns that Phil likes tight pressure around the head, more so on the down stroke than the up, and that if Dan pauses to reach down and cup his balls, fighting his fingers only briefly around them, Phil will shut his eyes and throw his head back. 

He's not sure how long it goes on. It could be hours of exploration, or only minutes, but his other hand is tucked under Phil's head and Phil reaches forward to bite into the soft flesh of Dan's palm. 

Dan's hips are snapping, pushing into the dark secret places of Phil, while his hand works him over and Phil seems to be losing it. 

Dan hadn't really been paying attention to his own pleasure but as Phil helplessly bites down on Dan's skin, Dan finds that he's close too. 

"I'm gunna—"

"Yeah," Dan says, his hand speeding up. "Yeah, me too." 

There is sweat at Dan's hairline, a wash of it over their entire bodies, pooling in the places they are joined and it's such a contrast to the cold, dark of the room it makes Dan dizzy as he hurtles towards the edge. 

"I--" Dan starts, as he plummets over, his cock pulsing between Phil's thighs, coating him. 

He doesn't know what he intended to say. Maybe something stupid, or nonsensical. But it doesn't matter, because Phil is right there with him, come seeping between Dan's fingers and spreading over Phil's skin. 

It's messy, sweaty and glorious, and Dan feels spent and tired, aching in all the right places. 

"Fuck," Phil says.

"Yeah," Dan says, because that sort of encapsulates everything he's feeling. 

Dan rolls onto his back and Phil goes to do the same before laughing slightly. 

"I should go clean up," he says, and he sounds amused, laughing like he would if they were sharing any other joke. 

It's the same as it always is between them. Nothing has changed at all, except that in this universe, everything has. 

Dan laughs too, because Phil is covered in a mixture of his own come, and Dan's, and it feels a little ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as it should considering the circumstances, considering he's dreaming or hallucinating or maybe completely insane, whatever it is that makes all of this universe-jumping feel as real as it does. 

It's realistic though. Even in his dreams he can't conjure a world where sex isn't messy and sweaty and a little bit awkward. 

It does make Phil smile at him, and lean forward to kiss Dan on the mouth one more time, like a promise that this doesn't end just because the sex is over. 

Dan swallows when they part, and the reality of the situation sits heavy in his stomach. 

"Thought you were going," Dan says. 

"I am."

They look at each other for another second, Phil's face soft and happy, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

"Go on then," Dan urges. 

"It's cold," Phil says.

"Hurry up then," Dan hears himself say.

"Keep the bed warm for me," Phil says, diving out of the bed, "I'll be back."

He waddles off to the bathroom, his jeans still trapped around his thighs. Dan watches him go with a lump in his throat.

He could stay here. He could keep the bed warm and wait for Phil to come back and pretend that this is the universe he belongs in, that he deserves this, that Phil wanting him in this way is real. 

But it isn't. It isn't real however much he pretends that it is. His own universe is out there, somewhere, and he either needs to keep going until he finds it, or until this dream/hallucination/fever-induced nightmare is over. 

Dan's looks wistfully at the bathroom door one last time, thinks about his own Phil watering the plants in his hoodie and his glasses, and pulls his phone from his jeans pocket. 

The webpage loads as it usually does. _cuddling for warmth_ mocks him in the tags, and _porn without plot_ makes him wish that it was that easy. That he could have this without thinking about home, about how he doesn't belong in any of these timelines, or universes. 

Sex, without all of those thoughts, without the plot of this strange dream sequence playing in a loop in his head, that sounds like just the distraction he needs. 

Dan closes the webpage, the world fades to black, and _whoosh_.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags for this chapter:** bdsm, gags, orgasm control, orgasm denial, comeplay, praise kink, chastity device

This time when Dan wakes up, heart racing and dizzy, he begins to panic. It's dark, and he can feel that he's laying on a bed, but he can't see anything. His head throbs, a pressure at the sides and back of his head that's becoming more and more familiar as time goes on. 

He feels sick, and uncomfortable, and it takes him a few moments for that to clear, for him to catalogue his body, his positioning, really understand his situation. He becomes aware of his arms being stretched out above his head, and there is something binding his wrists together, and then his wrists to the headboard. 

He tugs, making a wild, uncontrolled sound in his throat but there is also a loop of something in his mouth, pressing against the corners of his lips. He flicks his tongue against it, and he can tell that it's only material, something soft and silky. 

He tugs again, and hears the rattle of the headboard, and suddenly there are hands on his thighs. 

"Dan?" 

It's Phil, because of course it is, and his voice is soft and full of concern. The gag at Dan's mouth loosens, and the blindfold is pulled away from his eyes. He blinks in the newly-bright light and Phil is leaning over him. 

"Are you okay?" 

Dan, heart racing with the immediate panic that is now subsiding, heaves a breath inward. Phil is here, his hands on Dan grounding him, bringing him back from the brink. And now Dan can feel everything, all the sensations in his body sharp and new. Dropped into this world, he gets everything all at once, and he isn't sure what to do with it. 

Phil's hands are on him everywhere, soft palms smoothing across his thighs, hips, chest. Dan is completely naked, save for a strange _something_ near his cock. It too, is restrained, by something Dan has only ever seen on a computer screen, in porn. It makes him flush to think that it's strapped to him, and he sucks in a breath, alarmed, because he hadn't known that denial, forced denial by way of a cage around his cock, was a thing for him. 

It doesn't surprise him, in a world based around fanfiction, that the kinds of things Dan only knows about from furtive secret Google searches, exist right here in the spaces he knows well with the person he knows best. 

His length twitches, pulsing against cold metal, and he thinks that maybe it is a thing after all. Or at least, in this world it is.

Phil is shirtless, and bare legged, wearing only a tight pair of black boxers. He has his glasses on and his hair pushed back, but he's clearly a few years younger than the Phil Dan is used to. 

"I'm sorry I left you for a minute, I was going to come back. Do you want to stop?" He's reaching for the binding on Dan's wrists without waiting for Dan to answer. 

"Wait," Dan says. His voice is veering towards hoarse from the yelling, but Phil looks so concerned that Dan doesn't think this is a bad situation. It doesn't feel like it anyway, not with the way his skin feels hot, his cock desperately wants to fill, to harden, but is prevented from doing so by the slender twists of metal surrounding it. 

A unique situation, and possibly even one he could enjoy.

At least, if he knows fanfiction. 

Phil does stop. He sweeps the hair out of Dan's eyes with the back of his long fingers, the bump of a knuckle against his hairline, and Dan realises that his hair is longer than it had been. He's younger too. He hadn't given much thought to how each of these worlds had been affecting him, focussed only on how they changed his surroundings, the events he's caught up in, Phil. 

It strikes him that this could be a different scenario entirely to the panicked thoughts that had filled his head initially. Phil is half dressed and above him, and Dan is tied up and helpless below. This could be the uncomplicated circumstance he'd been hoping for. 

There isn't the cold nippy air, or a single bed, there's nothing he can blame for this if he goes along with it. Looking around, Dan finds that he's just in their old London apartment, in his old bed on top of black and grey checked sheets. If he does this, if he follows this story where he suspects it's going, it isn't because he just got swept along, or drunk, or cold. It'll be because he wants to. 

"I'm good," Dan says. There's no use kidding himself that this will go any other way. He's giving in to it all now, to being attracted to Phil, to wanting him. And if that means he bounces from world to world, having Phil without every really having him, then so be it. "I just got spooked for a second. Don't stop." 

"Tell me what you do if you want to stop," Phil says. 

Dan hasn't heard his voice sound like that before. It's rough, commanding, and it sends another shiver through his body and he can feel how pink his chest and cheeks must be. His cock twitches once again and it aches where it's restrained, plump with blood and rising arousal but unable to get fully hard. 

"Fuck," Dan says, and Phil's hand sweeps into his hair again. "I don't know." 

"Poor baby," Phil says, tracing the tip of his finger down Dan's forehead, along the bridge of his nose and then pausing on his lip. He taps it, pushing in between them to rest on Dan's tongue. It takes everything in Dan not to suck, but he senses that isn't something he should do. 

At least, not until he's told to. 

"If you want to stop, click your flingers," Phil says and Dan nods around the digit resting on his tongue. "Do you want the gag back?" 

Dan shakes his head, "Want to see you." 

The bottom drops out of his stomach as he says it. He flushes, because it's true, he really does want to see Phil. It scares him how easy it is to be attracted to Phil, to give into it. But he thinks some of that comes from the knowledge that this isn't _his_ Phil. He has no idea what he would do if he was thrust into this situation in his real life. 

He wouldn't be. 

Back in his own universe, in the real world, Phil doesn't want him. Phil doesn't nod and pull his fingers from Dan's mouth and chuckle when Dan chases them. 

"Eager," Phil chuckles. 

"Am I?" Dan says. He tips his head back, baring his throat as Phils fingers travel down over his chin, nails scratching lightly against the sensitive skin of his pulsepoint. Dan breathe heavy, a soft unintended groan barely audible at the back of his tongue. 

"You always are," Phil says. He's look along the length of Dan's body, eyes hungry. His fingers touch Dan's skin, but Dan can feel the touch of his eyes too. His pupils are dilated, his chest flushed, Dan wants to reach out and touch him too but his hands are still tied. "Always so good for me." 

Dan squirms under the praise, and Phil climbs on to the bed. 

"Do you like that?" Phil asks. 

His palms smooth across Dan's ribs, and Dan arches into it. Phil leans down and presses his hot mouth against the skin stretched across Dan's hipbone. Dan's cock twitches again and he wonders how he can be ready to go again so quickly after the last time. 

Everything resets once he gets to a new universe. His body is brand new, instructed only by the rules of this universe and not the one before it. 

"If you want to stop, just say so," Phil says, breath hot against the cold metal wrapped around Dan's cock. 

"Don't," Dan says. 

It's easy to be attracted to Phil, and getting easier all the time, but it doesn't mean that he feels any less guilt about it. Because he's sort of gaming the system, getting to play out these fantasies - ones he didn't even know he had - without his own Phil ever knowing about it. 

If he ever gets back to his own universe, this will all be a wild set of dirty, wet dreams he had once. He'll have to push it all down and pretend that he doesn't know what it's like to feel Phil's hands on him. 

But then, does he really know? Who is to say that this facsimile is close to the real thing, who is to say that fanfic writers have it right? Maybe the real Phil, or at least the one that exists in his universe, isn't anything like this. 

He certainly can't really imagine Phil strapping him into a cock cage and then teasing him to the point of begging. 

Or can he?

"Don't stop," Dan says, and gets used to the idea that he isn't going to be able to keep his cool, or convince himself that he isn't already quite far gone. 

Phil tips his head back and smirks up at him. Dan does look down, but just like before it isn't long until he has to look away, the familiar blue of Phil's eyes contrasted against the silver metal of the cock cage is just too much. 

"Relax," Phil says. 

Dan drops his head back down onto his pillow and stares up at his old ceiling. The crack is still present in the plaster, and that strange circular decorative rose is around the light fitting, it looks exactly like he remembers it, but this situation is absolutely new. 

Phil kisses the top of his thigh, the outside of his hip, and then takes Dan's hips in his hands and urges him to turn over. 

Whatever is binding him to the headboard twists easily and Dan is manoeuvred onto his front, hand still outstretched above his head.

It takes him all of a second to realise that leaving his body flat on the bed causes the cool metal of the cock cage to bite into his skin and he has to cant his hips up, spread his legs to steady himself, presenting his arse to be surveyed by Phil's lingering gaze.

"You're so gorgeous," Phil says, his hand smoothing at Dan's inner thigh from behind. His knuckles brush the sensitive skin of Dan's balls and Dan can't help but let out a moan. "Such a pretty ass just waiting to be filled."

Dan has to bite down on his bottom lip and drop his eyelids to a half-close, he can feel the heat in his cheeks. Phil saying those things, in the sexy deep voice Dan is becoming more and more familiar with, is doing things to him.

It's no secret that Dan has a hard time thinking good things about himself sometimes, and it's always been nice when Phil compliments him or tells him that he's done something good. Dan just had no idea that it would translate to here, to this specific circumstance. 

Phil's finger drift up over his skin, pressing on the tender spot behind his balls and Dan whines. He so badly wants to get hard, he can feel his cock throbbing and pressing against the metal of the cage. It's almost painful. 

"Please, Phil," Dan says. 

He sounds too far gone to his own ears. Like he's desperate, and maybe he is. 

Phil's hand leave him, and then the sound of a plastic cap fills the air. Academically, Dan understands what it is, but he's dizzy and distracted by the ache of his cock so when Phil's fingers return, lube slick and sliding into his arse crack, Dan gasps in shock. 

"Good," Phil says, and Dan realises he's pushing his ass back, begging for more. 

In the bath, reading fanfiction, he'd felt jealous of himself in the story. He'd been envious of the fact that his fic-self had someone to fuck him, someone who wanted him. In this universe, he might have that too. 

Phil slides his fingers in one at a time. Dan feels the urgency of his brewing erection subside at first, as the stretch starts, but Phil is gentle and patient. He takes his time with Dan, praising him for how good he is doing and chuckling low and dark at the way that makes Dan whine and turn pink. 

By the time Phil has two fingers in him, sliding prettily with the ease of lube and Dan's own enthusiasm, Dan is beginning to feel hot and sweaty and his cock begs to fill. 

"Phil," Dan chokes out. 

Phil's fingers continue to thrust into him, and Dan cries out as he brushes over somewhere deep and sensitive. 

"You like that?" Phil says. 

"Phil, please… I need—" 

"What do you need?"

His fingers slow, but they don't stop. 

"M'so hard," Dan says. 

It doesn't make sense, because with the cage around him he isn't really hard, but he's as hard as he can get with the obstruction, and the aching pull is starting to get uncomfortable. 

Phil's other hand reaches between Dan's legs and his warm fingers wrap around the swollen, feverish flesh of Dan's cock. 

"Poor baby," Phil says, again. His fingers tighten just for a moment and Dan thinks he might cry with the frustration. 

"I can't—" Dan says. 

He wonders if the Dan in this universe can usually hold on longer. He wonders if this is a game they've played before, and whether Phil wonders why it's different this time. 

Phil's fingers pull away, and the ones inside of him slide out gently, and Dan is bereft. He looks back over his shoulder to see Phil leaning over the side of the bed. 

"Left the key in my jeans," Phil says, and he smiles his usual Phil smile. 

Dan melts. 

It's still Phil. Always, whatever fucking universe he's in, it's Phil. The same Phil, for the most part. Here he is, strapping Dan up in a cock cage, tying him to the bed and touching him in ways that make his cheeks burn and his cock ache, and yet he's still the clumsy guy who leaves the key to the thing in his jeans pocket. 

Dan wants to laugh back at him, and he does manage a smile, but he's mostly just distracted and aching. He sighs with relief as Phil comes over to him, key in his hand, and finally, mercifully, unlocks the mechanism holding his straining cock in place. 

It swells fast. Phil abandons the cage off to the side somewhere that Dan doesn't see, and wraps his hand around Dan's hardening length.

"Uhh," Dan slurs, thrusting his hips into Phil's soft palm, "fu—" 

"So patient for me," Phil says. 

He is the clumsy, same old Phil, but he's also this. Intoxicating, alluring, sensual in ways Dan has never experienced and he wonders if his Phil has the capacity to be like this. He's sad that he'll never find out, but if he gets it once, here, then that might be enough. 

"So patient. I wonder…" Phil speaks directly into his ear, hot breath tickling his skin, "can you wait a bit longer?" 

Dan's hips are moving of their own accord. He's going to come, he can feel it. He's aware of Phil asking him to wait, to be patient, but he isn't sure that he can. 

"Dan," Phil says, one last time, and Dan's hips begin to stutter. 

Dan could scream with frustration as Phil removes his hand. Dan chases it for a moment, but Phil presses a flat palm on his hip and Dan collapses down to the bed. His chest heaves, and he's still just as hard as he was, orgasm thwarted.

"Fuck," Dan says. 

"Hm," Phil says. "I didn't want you to come yet."

"Why?"

Phil full on laughs at him and taps him on the ass cheek. "Come on," he says, "turn over." 

Dan heaves himself over. His cock bobs between his legs, as hard as it could be, flushed almost purple at the tip and leaking precum. 

His hands are still tied up over his head and his shoulders are beginning to twinge from the position, but he can't pay attention to that at the moment. 

"So pretty," Phil says, taking him in.

Dan almost says _shut up_ or _no you're pretty_ , but feeling it would only be embarrassing, he pushes it down. 

Dan blinks as Phil peels the black boxers from his hips and he's treated to the sight of PHil's cock once again. It is thick and pink and it looks the same here as it does in other universes. Which, is either down to fanfiction writers uncanny ability to know what Phil's cock looks like, or his own imagination is just filling in the blanks. 

Or then again, maybe these universes really exist somewhere, maybe every fanfiction conjures a reality. Multiverse theory would suggest that every eventuality plays out so these universes, although matching fanfictions, have to exist somewhere right? And if that's true then what does that mean for—

Dan's thoughts are promptly interrupted as Phil climbs ungracefully over him, and straddles his chest. 

"I was going to fuck you," Phil says, "but I can take my eyes off your mouth. You always have such a good mouth." 

He presses his index finger against Dan's lower lip again and this time Dan does suck at it. He rolls it on his tongue and Phil lets out a deep moan, rumbling in his chest so loud that Dan feels the vibration in his body where Phil is straddling him. 

"Fuck Dan," Phil says. 

He pulls the fingers from Dan's mouth, takes hold of his cock and the back of Dan's head and guides the tip of it to push between his lips. 

"Suck me," Phil says. 

Dan complies. 

The scent of Phil is in his nose, musky and tangy. The scent of sex and heat and all the things Dan is coming to associate with him. He doesn't think twice about the fact that this is the first time he's sucking Phil's cock - he just goes with it. 

It's been a long time since he's done this at all, but not long enough that he doesn't remember how. He give over to it, letting Phil's cock stretch his lips and fill his mouth as he sinks down onto it again and again. He gets lost in it, loving the sensation, the weight on his tongue, the way Phil keens and sighs as Dan swirls over the head. 

He hollows his cheeks, and gives in to everything he wants. Everything he might have been wanting for a while. 

He's realising more and more how long this might have been going on. 

He's always thought Phil was attractive. Right from the beginning he thought that, but he'd struggled with naming it attraction back then and by the time he got it together enough, and understood himself enough to understand what it was, they were friends. It had moved on, the opportunity gone. Dan never took Phil up on what he looks back on and understands was probably an invitation. 

But that's done. He can't have that back where he came from, but he can have it here. 

Phil's head it thrown back. His eyes are half lidded, lashes fanning over blue irises, and he does look beautiful. How did it take Dan so long to notice? 

Phil's cock twitches on his tongue and his fingers tighten in Dan's hair. 

"Mm," Phil says, "Your mouth is so… ah, it's fucking good." 

Dan flushes with the praise and hollow his cheeks. He takes Phil deeper into his mouth so that he bumps against Dan's soft palate. He doesn't gag, he's prepared for it. He once told the internet that he had an oral fixation and then regretted it when they assumed he was doing just this with Phil. 

He feels kind of smug now. 

Phil begins to breath heavier, and Dan's neck is starting to ache from the angle, but he can't stop when Phil is so close. 

Phil, even as he hurtles towards coming down Dan's throat, reaches back behind him and curls long, delicate fingers around Dan's cock. 

Dan moans, and hte vibration of it must go through Phil's cock because he matches it with one of his own. 

"Come for me, Dan," Phil says. 

And once again, Dan complies. 

He's close to the edge anyway. His previous orgasm edged out, and having been so restrained before that, he's ready to go. All it takes is for Phil to tighten his fingers into a soft, warm circle, and concentrate short, sharp strokes on the head of his cock just like he likes it, like it's something Phil has done before, something he _knows_. 

Dan comes loudly and messily all over his own stomach. He must get it on Phil's fingers too, but his head swims and he can't really keep track of it. Phil continues thrusting into his mouth, and works his cok with his hand until every last drop of his orgasm is drained from his and smeared over his own skin. 

"Fuck," Phil says, "Fuck Dan I'm—" 

Dan get it. He's floaty and spent from coming his brains out, but he concentrates on keeping his mouth sucking at Phil, though he's mostly just letting Phil fuck his mouth at this point. 

Phil comes with a loud groan and a hot flood of salty come right onto Dan's tongue. Dan laps at him, taking it as well as he can as Phil rides it out. He's glorious, eyes screwed shut, face twisted in pleasure. Dan just watches him come and tries to file the image away for later. 

Back when he's home and he can't have this anymore.

"Don't swallow," Phil says, interrupting Dan's thoughts and easing his cock from Dan's mouth. 

Dan doesn't let it show how perplexed he is, because the way Phil says it makes it sound like something he's asked before. Something they do. 

Phil takes a moment to untie Dan's hands before he slithers down Dan's body and bends low to swipe his tongue through the mess on Dan's stomach. Dan is wide eyed as Phil laps up the remnants of his orgasm and then comes back to pull Dan into a hot, filthy kiss. 

It feel dirty, but hot. Far and away from anything Dan would have thought himself doing but apparently in this universe they are kind of filthy fucks, and he's okay with it. He kisses Phil, the mingling taste of both of them passed between their mouths. He shifts his aching shoulders and throws his arms around Phil's neck, pulling him flush so that their chests are pressed together, all warm skin and lingering mess. They kiss until the taste dies, until their jaws ache, until Dan is sleepy and soft and Phil is holding him close. 

Phil's hands are in his hair, petting at him. Dan's face has found its way into the crook of Phil's neck and he's still sticky, and gross, but he's comfortable and drowsy. 

"Do you need anything?" Phil asks. 

Dan shakes his head, "Do you?" 

"I might get water," he says, "And we should probably clean up." 

Dan reluctantly pulls away, and he can't bare the look of open affection on Phil's face. It's then that it hits him. 

This isn't friends with benefits. This isn't sex because they're trapped somewhere cold and a bit drunk, and it isn't - as he had thought - just him playing out a fantasy of having wild uninhibited sex with Phil. 

In this universe they are _together_. 

It goes beyond the sex to something else entirely, to something way more. Phil licks his lips and opens his mouth as if to say something else and Dan pulls away sharply. 

"I'll go get you that water," he says. 

Phil frowns, and calls his name, as Dan dives out of bed and exits into the hallway completely naked. 

"I'll be back," Dan calls, and prays Phil doesn't follow him. 

He gets to the bottom of the hall, reeling from how similar it all is. The dreamscape of their new apartment hadn't looked right at all, the angles not quite right and the doors in odd places, but this apartment is just as he remembers it. Right down to the googly eyes on the lightswitch. 

He looks back over his shoulder and then continues on past the kitchen, sneaking up the stairs and being careful of the squeaky door on their old gaming room. The PC is idle, of course, because he never learned to turn it off properly even though Phil constantly complained that it used up electricity. 

You can take the boy out of the north… 

He logs in. The password has changed now so it takes him a moment to remember the old one. He's startled that it works, given that if this universe is based on fanfiction, writers would have no way of knowing what his password had been. 

He's beginning to think it isn't as straightforward as all that at all. 

The familiar red and white webpage is waiting for him when he loads up his browser. He stares at _established relationship_ , the rest of the tags describing various sex acts are there too, but he can't stop looking at that one. 

Established. Long term, permanent. No excuses. 

Dan sighs, shuts his eyes for just a second to steady himself and then hears Phil's voice calling him from the hallway below. 

He panics, heart hammering, and jams the cursor onto the red X in the top of the screen. 

He closes the page, and _whoosh_.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags for this chapter:** bestiality, incest, abo, Water sports, #spon (but, not really to all of these - none of it is depicted only referenced)

The universe, or universe _s_ , refuse to give Dan a break. When he leaves the comfort of his old flat he's dropped into another world where Phil is on his knees, willing and eager, and Dan is powerless to resist. 

It keeps happening. He goes from world to world sleeping with Phil, touching him and wanting him, with Phil wanting him back. 

He can't stop. The worlds don't stop coming and he can't get home no matter how much he tries. The only way he can find to get through it is to either go with the scenario long enough to make a peaceful exit after and then close the tab, or else high tail it out of there in the first place. 

If he spends more time indulging than running then well, no one needs to know but him. 

There are still a few that make him run, though. Worlds so far removed from anything he can imagine of Phil, of himself, that he doesn't spend too long in any of them. 

The first is when he's dropped into a small but luxurious room. Phil is writhing around on a bed dressed with silk sheets, ignoring him completely until Dan walks close enough. 

As he does, Phil locks wide, dazed eyes on him. His face is flushed, lips pulled back over a desperate mouth, shiny teeth bared just the tiniest amount. 

"Please…" Phil says, "Alpha." 

And Dan pulls the phone from his pocket and closes the tab as quick as he can.

It isn't that he's against it, it's just that he does have some knowledge of fanfiction tropes, and having a Phil hormonally compromised to the point of letting Dan do whatever he wants, begging him to, is a bit more than Dan can handle when his head is already full of the moral quandaries he's debating over and over. 

Is he lying to himself? To Phil? Is it right to keep sleeping with various iterations of Phil when he knows his own Phil doesn't want him? 

It feels like objectifying him, maybe. But Phil being into it, wanting him in all of these alternate universes, is the very thing that makes Dan too weak to resist. So maybe it isn't.

He can only devote so much attention to pondering it because the worlds he pops up in seem to get stranger and stranger. 

He wakes up on a stage. A spotlight on a piano, and him on the stool, but he's alone and the screens show only his name. The crowd screams at him but fear clutches at his throat and he has to dive into the wings, shove past the concerned looks of the crew, and close the tab on his phone as quickly as he can. Some dreams aren't worth living through, some have the potential to turn into nightmares.

Next is a delivery suite with a pregnant Phil clearly in the midst of delivering a baby and though it sparks Dan's morbid curiosity to find out how it all ends, he ultimately doesn't stick around to find out. 

He does file it away to tell Phil about later if he ever gets home. The mpreg thing has always been a fascination of his. 

He gets tangled up in a world with the tag _omorashi_ and vows never to speak of what he did there after he closes the tab. But he did do it. 

He's used to existing with the headache of jumping, with the dizziness and unsteady feet. But his body is renewed every time, sometimes older or younger, and sometimes different from how he remembers it. 

There is some variation in the size of his cock that he can't help but notice, and Phil's too, so he wonders if it only changes when the story specifies it to. Otherwise everything is the same as it always is. 

Dan skips through so many worlds that nothing surprises him anymore. He barely raises an eyebrow at the world where Phil calls him his brother and tells him their parents aren't home before reaching for his zipper. He closes the tab on that one pretty quickly, because there is only so much he's willing to go with. 

The less said about the place with the blue-eyed, black-maned, donkey the better. Dan still feels fairly odd about that one. 

Fanfiction writers have wild imaginations, he's got to hand it to them for the creativity, but some of their more colourful world building doesn't really appeal when he has to experience it first hand. 

For the most part it's regular, or as close to it, but hot. There are a few more worlds where Phil ties him up, or orders him about, and Dan thinks he likes those ones the best. 

He explores a few kinks and, in one crazy unexpected world, has sex with Phil on camera for a condom brand deal. 

He figures it doesn't count if it isn't real. Or when it's a world he can close the tab on and leave as soon as the red light on the camera dims. 

The sex is great, and getting to enjoy it is all well and good but there are a few times that things get complicated after. In those worlds where they are together, when it isn't just a spon or a chance encounter, when it's Dan and Phil and the kind of affection on Phil's face that he's starting to recognise.

It looks the same no matter where he is. Phil looking at him like he's the best thing in the world, even telling him so on several occasions. 

Dan has to close his eyes, escape, close the tab before it gets too much. 

Sometimes, Dan thinks that it isn't just sex. It's something else. 

It's the most obvious when he wakes up to a sunlit bedroom. Phil's bedroom. It's the first London flat again, because of course it is. A lot of it is there, it seems, maybe because the fans really loved it, or because more fanfic was written during the time they were living there. Maybe a bit of both. 

Either way, it's kind of nice to be back. 

The don't often include the drilling or the ringing phone next door in their stories so, it's better than it had been back in the real world. 

He wakes to Phil pressed against him. A shaft of sunlight falls in a straight line across their bed - Phil's bed - and then over Phil's bare shoulder. 

It's Dan that reaches out first, sweeps the hair form Phil's eyes and smiles when they blink open, a cheerful blue already so happy to see him. He covers Phil's welcoming smile in a kiss and clambers over to slot his knees either side of Phil's hips. 

Everything is unspoken. Slow and easy, and Dan thinks of how easy it might have been once upon a time, how there might have been another time he could have rolled over in a share bed and kissed Phil like this. He curses his young and foolish self at eighteen, even as he slides a hand into Phil's hair and drags him ever closer. 

Whispered shuffles and a few uncoordinated movements later and they've both got their pyjama bottoms pulled down to mid thigh. Dan's hand is wrapped around them both - though admittedly more around Phil because he can't help himself - and they are moving together. 

They're kissing, but their noses swish softly together and it's more like they're breathing each other's air. Skin hot and soft and pressed so close Dan can feel Phil's heartbeat in his own chest. 

Phil comes first, but only barely. He tips his head up and looks Dan right in the eye as he does, and the look that Dan finds there is pure, unadulterated affection. He's so open and earnest that Dan can't look directly at it. 

It lights a fire in the pit of his stomach and he comes with a cry, coating his hand and Phil's stomach, mingling with the aftermath of Phil's own orgasm. Dan lets his weight fall onto Phil and Phil's wet lips rze his forehead in a delicate, gentle kiss. 

"I l—" Phil says, but Dan whips his head up to kiss the words out of his mouth. 

"Don't," he says, after. 

"Huh?" 

"Don't say that," Dan insists. "Just… please. Don't." 

Phil frowns and him, and opens his mouth to say something else but Dan climbs away. He pulls his pyjamas back to rights and mumbles something about going to get cleaned up and he once again leaves Phil alone in a bed, calling after him. 

How much longer can he keep doing this? How many more times will he pretend that he could have any of this, that he deserves it? 

That's it, he thinks to himself as he locates his laptop in his own bedroom and pulls up the webpage, it has to stop. 

_Click_ goes his mouse on the red X, then _whoosh_.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags for this chapter:** This guy, public sex, bite marks, festival

He lands in the middle of a field. Wearing colourful Wellington boots and a pink tie-dye cat shirt. He recognises it, Reading festival of 2013. 

There's a small red tent decorated with pictures of musicians off to the side that he also recognises, but it isn't where he remembers it being. It's in a backstage area, secluded from a lot of the hustle and bustle, pushed back against a quiet stretch of grass. It should be in the press area where they'd filmed the in-tent-terviews. 

It's the middle of the night and there are crowds of people, and Dan can feel the far-off thump of music and the scream of crowds behind his eyelids. Jumping makes him feel unsteady and dizzy every time, but it feels a little worse this time so he's distracted when a group of people approach him. 

"Where did you get to?" 

Phil is as his side, standing close enough that Dan can feel the warmth of his body, but not close enough that it feels any different than it usually does. A friend distance. Dan wonders if this is just a trip down memory lane, and he might be able to convince himself off it except that the world looks slightly skewed as they so often have. Like the environments are crafted by people that have researched them but weren't there, Dan's own mind fills in the gaps perhaps, but it's still different enough that he knows to brace himself for whatever might come. 

"Are you okay?" Phil asks, and Dan feels the back of Phil's knuckles against his elbow, barely there and quick enough that no one could see. Dan shrinks back away from it, and doesn't miss the flicker of something on Phil's face. 

"You look a bit ill, mate," one of the other guys with Phil says. 

"I'm fine," Dan forces a smile onto his face and shakes of the remainder of the headache. He straightens his shoulders and angles his body just a minute way towards Phil, just to erase the sad look on his face. 

"Have you had too much sun?" Phil says. 

Dan looks over at him. He can see the tips of Phil's cheeks are already pink beneath the rims of his sunglasses, the end of his nose flushed with sun exposure. 

"Me? You look like you're about to burst into flames," Dan says, laughing. He turns to address the two other men stood with them and affects a jovial, crowd-pleasing tone, "Honestly, this guy." 

"Hey!" Phil says, "I put sun cream on." 

"Obviously not enough," Dan says. 

One of the others clears his throat and Phil's head snaps up. It's only then that Dan realises they've been looking at each other and ignoring everyone else.

"Well, you've found him," one of them says to Phil, "do you still need us for anything?" 

"No, thanks though," Phil says, "We've finish interviews for today so I think we'll just… go enjoy some music." 

They don't seem overly invested in staying so they nod and move off without too much fuss. 

"Did you drag them halfway across the field to find me?" Dan says. 

"You walked off," Phil says, his voice getting high pitched like it does sometimes. 

"Yeah…" Dan says, shrugging. 

He's learned to be as vague as possible. When he doesn't slip into a narrative with all of the cues at his disposal he tries to act like he knows what's going on until something happens to tell him. 

"You didn't have to leave," Phil says, "I was just finishing talking. Do we need to have a conversation about your thing with jealousy again?" 

He says it with a smile, like it's something they've discussed before. Like he isn't really mad, but still soft enough that he might be concerned Dan is feeling… jealous. Or something. 

"No," Dan reassures him, "I'm not jealous." 

Phil hooks his head over his shoulder for a brief moment to check if anyone is looking and, satisfied they aren't, reaches out to tug lightly on Dan's sleeve. 

"Good," he says, fingers lingering, "you know you have nothing to be jealous of." 

He tugs more insistently, pulling Dan after him as he walks away in the direction of the tent. 

"What are we doing?" Dan says. He slips his sleeve out of Phil's grasp, and Phil lets him go easily enough, but he stays in step beside him. 

"We're going somewhere I can show you how much you don't need to be jealous." 

Phil's voice is quiet, mingling with the far-off music and the dull thud of bass. Dan shivers. 

"You don't have to—" 

"Dan," Phil says, standing at the entrance to the tent, "get in." 

"Are you kidding?" 

Phil raises an eyebrow at him and shakes his head. He crosses his arms over his chest and nods down at the flimsy zip on the front of the two-man tent. 

"There are people around," Dan says. 

It hasn't taken him long to cotton on that this is one of those universes where they are together but not comfortable sharing that fact. There are a lot of those, and Dan thinks that actually it makes sense, because even if they had been together forever, he can't really imagine how that all works in the grand scheme of things. 

There aren't universes where they are YouTubers like they are now, and have been together since the start, where it isn't a secret. At least, not that Dan has seen.

"Which is why you need to get in the tent," Phil says. 

He moves his hand like there might be the threat of something if Dan doesn't get in the tent, like the challenge is there that he'd resolve this in public if he has to. 

Dan knows he won't, but it sends a thrill through him all the same. 

The public aspect isn't something he'd known he was into either, and maybe he isn't really, not in actuality. But this is just a fantasy, just a fake world conjured by a fic writer, and fanfic has nothing to do with the real him.

He gives Phil one last look, his insistent expression softening into something a little different just as Dan takes a breath, and ducks inside of the tent. Phil follows him in and they shuffle around each other. There is only the thin lining of the tent separating it from the bed of soft grass beneath. It isn't the most comfortable thing, Dan thinks as he sits down because there isn't enough space for him to stand, but it's not awful either. 

Phil zips up the tent, the sound of it the only thing between them, and Dan tries to steady his breath for what comes next. He shouldn't be doing this again, he knows what this scenario is barrelling towards and he still has the lingering memory of that intense, earnest expression on Phil's face. It feels like only moments ago, but equally like a million miles away. 

He doesn't know whether the long it goes on the further away from home he gets, or if he's just cycling through all of this in some kind of circle. He must have gone past the halfway point right now, he must be on his way back. 

Phil turns from the mouth of the tent, now securely closed, and crawls over to Dan, continuing until her is in the space between Dan's legs, which part seemingly of their own accord. Dan fists a hand in the side of Phil's t-shirt and smiles at him. 

"You really are a bit sunburned," Dan says. 

He doesn't care if this isn't how it went back in the day, that Phil didn't get sunburned at this festival, and they didn't have some sort of crisis of jealousy. It's hard to care about any of it when Phil is up this close, especially when he looks just like the Phil he knows, save for the hair. 

"Shut up," Phil says, and kisses him. 

Dan's gotten into the rhythm of kissing Phil. It's mostly the same in a lot of universes, except in a few where he seems to think that their tongues are having some for of fight for the upper hand. But mostly it's like this, hot and a bit wet, but ultimately lovely. 

Dan can't help moving his hands over Phil's back, the dip of his waist, curling around his hips to pull him closer. He can't stop kissing him, even though he's told himself that he really should be putting an end to these things, that after last time there is always the chance that it will be like that again, that he'll have to flee in the face of Phil's affection. 

And even if it isn't real, he hates hurting Phil like that. 

The sounds in the tent are reduced to the slide of zippers, wet skin on skin, and the panting of their breathing. They don't stop kissing the entire time, even when their mouths don't line up correctly, Phil's smears his mouth near the side of Dan's cheek nearest his ear and moans softly against the shell of it. 

They're determined to be quiet. The music thuds outside and somewhere in the middle of it all there is the sound of footsteps going past the tent and they pause with wide eyes and then share soft giggles when they fade away. 

"This is crazy," Dan says. 

"You make me crazy," Phil says, "Always. Sometimes when we are places for a long time and I can't touch ou I think I'm going to die." 

"Then touch me," Dan says, even though Phil has a hand wrapped around his cock and he is returning the favour. 

Their wrists knock together, their hips move at slightly different paces as they both chase their relief, and the whole thing is kind of cramped and awkward, but it still feels more amazing than he wants to admit to himself. They laugh, they shift to get more comfortable and fail at multiple points while trying not to make suspicious shapes on the outside of the tent, and all in all it feels less smooth and practised than their other encounters. 

It's exactly like he can imagine it being with his Phil, if that were to ever happen. 

That thought enters his mind just as he reaches his peak, and he buries his face in Phil's neck, clamping teeth down over the hard jut of his collarbone as his comes all over Phil's fingers. 

Minutes later, when Dan has unlatched his jaw to find a pink-red bruise blossoming in their wake against Phil's pale skin, just below the line of his collar, Phil comes too with a groan into Dan's hair. 

They hold each other close and breath and Dan goes easy when Phil tips his head back to look into his eyes. Phil's eyes are blue, and wavering with the quick on-set lethargy that comes directly after having come, but Dan smiles up dazedly and meets them with tired look of his own. 

"All yours," Phil says.

And Dan is so out of it, so lost in the thought of _just like it could be with his Phil_ in his brain on a loop, that he nods in return and holds Phil just a little bit closer. 

"Wanna rest just for a little bit?" Phil says, "We'll have to go back to the press trailer at some point, but I don't want to move just yet." 

They rearrange, clean off as best they can and pull their jeans back up. They lay on the thin tent floor and Phil puts his arms around Dan and pulls him back against his chest, lips pressed briefly to the skin of his neck. 

Dan begins to feel the rising panic then. The one that often sets in after he does these things, only this time it's different. Every time before he's convinced himself that the situation or the Phil in question was nothing like it would be back home, it was easy to remove himself from the situation, to convince himself he was playing out a fantasy. 

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, and the red and white webpage is staring out at him and Phil tucks his head into the nape of Dan's neck and breathes. 

"Love you," he says, softly, a whisper so that no one outside can hear. 

Dan swipes his thumb on the screen of his phone and closes the webpage, before he does something stupid like reply. 

The words echo in his ear as the world slips away, and _whoosh_.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags for this chapter:** fandom au

Dan is in a university dorm room. It's small, but it isn't his own one back in Manchester. Still, he'd recognise this kind of room anywhere. 

His head feels heavy, a pulse of pain like a tightening band around the back of his skull and he's so dizzy that he has to sit down on the small single bed squeezed in next to a flimsy desk with an old-style laptop on top of it. He's kind of thankful for the breather, for some space away from Phil's unerring affection, he just wants to breathe and be by himself, he needs his own thoughts for just a little while so he can come to terms with what might be happening to him. 

Phil's words echo in his brain and he wants to make them stop. He doesn't know how long he has in this universe before Phil shows up - because he always shows up - but he wants to just be alone for a while. 

Maybe what he needs to do is no participate at all. Maybe the mistake he is making is engaging in these world and if he just closes the page before the story can start, he can stop everything in its tracks. 

He sits up on the bed, swings his legs around so that he is facing the rickety desk and opens the lid on the laptop. It's on, and plugged in, and rather than the expected red and white webpage, Tumblr is loaded on the screen. 

It's logged in to an account he doesn't recognise, but his face is the profile picture so he supposes that in this universe, it's his. Clicking on the picture it takes him to his blog, a monochromatic theme - which is nice to see - but the topmost post is one with Phil's face. It's a nice shot, he's wearing a shirt Dan doesn't recognise as one he owns back home, a pair of thick black glasses rest on his nose, and his hair is as long as it would have been when Dan was in university. He's holding a 

_still not over this selfie_ the first tag reads under his post, and then _can you believe Phil invented wearing glasses_.

The rest of the blog is similar. Pictures of Phil, even posts about him that range from observations on youtube videos all the way to outright thirst posts. It's a bit… over the top, honestly. 

He can't believe how long the blog goes on for as he scrolls down, how many asks he's answered about Phil from other fans. Because that's what he's realising he is, just a fan. 

There's another tab open for Twitter and his account there is much the same, albeit less thirsty and more just a stream of appreciation for Phil's videos mixed in with his life at university. Kind of what he thinks it would have looked like if they hadn't met. 

He has around thirty thousand followers on each of the platforms, so it isn't like he's an obscure no-one, he is, so far as he can tell from the asks and the tweet, somewhat of an authority on Phil. 

Weird. 

At least there is no link to a fic page anywhere, he has no idea what that would look like. Fic written by him, about Phil. 

Except, he does know what that looks like, doesn't he? He'd written it once. 

Perhaps without Dan in the picture there is no fic. Or worse, there's fic about Phil with someone else. 

No, Dan doesn't want to go looking for that.

He states at the screen. He reads more posts by himself and then takes to the main tags on Tumblr to read other people's posts. Phil is wonderful, he's funny and odd and charming the way he always is. He is very firmly AmazingPhil, in the way that Dan understands is him trying to protect himself from the intensity of audience, even I'd that audience in this universe isn't much over 2 million people. 

There isn't a book or a tour that Dan can find mention of and his first reaction is to feel cynical. To assume that is the case because without Dan, there isn't the voracious clamour for access to their personal lives, there isn't the people hanging on to see whether they are together and for how long. Or else making their own assumptions entirely. 

But the he watches a video. Its classic Phil, and Dan feels the same joy he feels whenever he watches something Phil made, but the video is different. 

He's still Phil, still AmazingPhil, but it's like the version of videos Dan gets to watch when Phil chucks off his headphones and calls him to the editing computer. He can already picture the conversation they'd have, the tweaks they'd make to it afterwards. 

Maybe they make each other better. Maybe it isn't about them as a duo, but about them supporting each other. 

Dan switches back to Twitter and makes a rash decision. It isn't that he thinks Phil needs him, that he can't be very obviously good on his own because Dan would still be a major fan of Phil regardless, but having experienced a world where they don't know each other - he can't stand it. 

**danisnotonfire:** hey man, this is probably totally pointless but i just wanted to say that i think you're awesome and that i think we'd be really good friends

He flops back down on the bed and exhales loudly at the ceiling. He drums his fingers on his chest and contemplates everything that's happened. Everything he's done. 

He should probably feel guilty. He does for theist part, because sleeping with Phil in this bizarre series of alternate universes is kind of wrong, like he's taking advantage of him because Phil doesn't know the truth. He doesn't know that the Dan he's sleeping with isn't the one from his universe. 

And that's the thing, because in every universe they're both a bit different. They've grown in that universe, had those experiences, and it's made them the people that they are. Or else, every writer's characterisation is slightly different.

But Dan doesn't change. He's still the person he always is, regardless of what world he's thrown into. And it isn't fair to lie to Phil about that. Even if these Phil's don't really exist. 

He resolves not to lie anymore if can help it. No more going along with it, no more of this. Even messaging Phil right now was bad. 

He stares at the ceiling for a little while longer, letting the decision settle into his mind and really solidify his determination to stick to it. 

He sits up from his recline and takes the laptop back into his hands, intending to close the tab on this one once and for all. 

There is a new message icon hovering over his inbox. Phil has replied.

The temptation to click on it is strong, to see if here in this universe they are also destined to be friends. To be together too. 

In his heart he knows thats where this goes. To another lie, another fantasy played out, but he just can't do this anymore.

He either gets home, or he keeps exiting until he does. That's all there is to it. 

He opens another tab and the red and white webpage is there, staring him in the face. He doesn't even need to think about it, he closes the tab. 

_Whoosh._


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **tags for this chapter:** body swap, weddings, outside pov

What he notices first in this world is that he isn't in control of his own body. 

No, not that. That implies that he has a body and is simply unable to control it. 

This is much, much different.

He's viewing the world through a filter, unable to move. It isn't like he's pinned, more like precisely the opposite, he's floating, unbound and undefined, like he barely exists at all. 

It doesn't seem fair. He doesn't know how the worlds he's flung into are picked, how his imagination, or the guiding force behind his trips through different fanfiction tropes, decides which of the worlds to conjure for him. 

He'd left the last world, the tiny, sad dorm room with Phil only reachable through a computer and not at arm's length, with the intention of getting somewhat closer to him. 

He has to believe that they will always find each other, in whatever world they are in it is impossible that they aren't in each other's lives. 

In fact, in most of them it's much more than that. He has no doubt at all that had he spent more time in that dorm room, followed that story through its arc to the conclusion, he would have been in Phil's space once again. 

But he'd wanted it to be quicker than that. 

_Where is that boy?_

The voice booms in the space around him, echoing from all sides. His view - a fancy room in a hotel suite, definitely not one Dan recognises - dips, and he's aware of the sensation of standing up from a chair.

He's carried across the room to a cream door with gold inlay and a hand raises up to knock on the door. 

Is it possible that he's inside someone else's body? Is that a thing? 

He tries to look at the hand carefully, to see if he recognises it, but beyond the fact that it's older, and female, he has no idea. 

"Phil, child," the woman says, "you don't want to be late." 

The door opens and then Phil is right there. He's within arms reach once again but Dan is unable to reach out with arms of his own. 

"I'm coming," Phil says. 

He's wearing a suit. It's black and more formal than anything he would usually wear to an event with his parents. Martyn follows him out of the door, slapping his shoulder and holding out a small flower with a clip woven into the back of the stem.

"Don't forget this," Martyn says, and passes it to Phil. 

"Ah! God, can't forget that, he'll kill me." 

The body in which Dan is floating takes the flower from Phil's fumbling fingers and fixes it to his lapel. Then the pale hand with painted fingernails is pressed tenderly to the side of Phil's face. 

"My baby boy," she says. "So grown up and getting married."

"Stop Mum, you said you weren't going to cry." 

If Dan had a stomach the bottom would have fallen out of it. He realises a few things in quick succession, that he is currently inhabiting the body of Kathryn Lester, Phil's mum, and that Phil is getting married. 

He feels sick at the thought of it. Phil is marrying someone, someone who isn't him. Because surely if it were him, he would be taking the place of the Dan in this universe, right? 

Not that Dan wants to go through the motions of marrying Phil. At least, he doesn't think so. He's trapped in this body though, unable to move or do anything by himself, so he's going to have to watch this just as Kath does. 

He, as Kathryn, follows Phil and Martyn out of the room and then Kath gives him a final squeeze which Dan cannot feel but wishes he could, and leaves him to take her seat beside Nigel, with Cornelia sitting a few seats along. The venue is decorated beautifully, white for the most part, with grey accents splashes of a deep navy blue. It isn't a church, but the ballroom of a fancy manor house maybe, definitely outside of London if the large green space outside the window is anything to go by. 

Kath looks around the room and sighs contentedly, she folds her hands in her lap and the music starts. Martyn walks past them, and then, to Phil's surprise, Bryony. He begins to feel squirrely and he doesn't want to look when Kath turns in her seat to watch the grooms come down the aisle together. 

As equals. Just how Dan would do it, he can't fathom having one person wait for the other, it makes no sense. 

Kath turns and Dan screams inside her head. No one can hear him, but she does raise a hand to her temple as if she's experiencing a mild headache. 

Phil is walking down the aisle, like a deer in love struck headlights and there, beside him, a wide smile and a rosy patch around his dimple, is Dan. 

The Dan in Kath's head feels off-kilter as he watches himself walk down an aisle with Phil. They're wearing matching suits, but with slightly different cuts so that they complement their individual styles. Phil is right, Dan would have killed him if he'd forgotten the boutonniere, it really finishes the look. 

_My boys,_ Kath's voice says, in her head. _Look at how handsome they are. My Phil is so happy, and Dan looks like he's going to burst._

She isn't wrong, He barely recognises the look on his own face, it isn't one he's seen very often in his own universe. 

Images of himself at eighteen shimmer into her thoughts. Standing next to Phil's in Kath's kitchen, the same expression on his face. Then in their living room at nineteen, at a restaurant at twenty, and a variety of other places in the years that follow. By the time he looks the same age as he is in this universe - which appears to be close to his actual age - the image of him in their house on the Isle of Man telling Kath and Nigel that they've finally booked a date for the wedding. Kath hugs them, and she starts with Dan. 

In all of these memories his face looks the same. Happy, smitten, completely in love. 

_They've always been so perfect for each other._

Dan watches himself walk down the aisle, his eyes never really on the crowd, but are always at least vaguely on Phil. He wants to get out, he doesn't want to sit and watch this but Kath won't look away. He pushes with all his might, concentrating on just trying to move something, anything. 

As he does, Kath gasps quietly and her hand twitches by her side. Dan can feel it. 

The Dan and Phil of this universe make it to the front of the aisle, to the table with the registrar smiling at them fondly. She greets them, the music fades, and she begins her speech by welcoming everyone. 

"We are here to witness the marriage of—"

Dan rages again, and this time Kath's hand moves on command. If he concentrates, he can feel the way her body responds to him. 

_That was strange_.

Dan fades out of listening and directs all of his attention to making Kath reach into her handbag and pull out the phone she has there. The red and white webpage loads on it as she clicks the button under Dan's command. 

_What—_

Dan directs Kath to look back at the front of the room one last time. Dan is smiling at Phil with that same open, earnest expression. Phil is looking back at him, his face just the same. Dan can't stand to look at it anymore. 

He pushes one last time, with a final surge of effort, and Kath's finger swipes on the phone, closing the webpage. 

The scene dissolves around him, his head swirls and there is a sharp stab of pain behind his eyes and then _whoosh_.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **tags for this chapter:** manchester, breakfast bar

When Dan wakes up in Phil's bed of the Manchester apartment, he's had enough. Something has to give, this whole thing has to end one way or another and he can't keep pretending. 

The wedding had been the last straw, the inside of Kath's head with it's thoughts about Dan and Phil being perfect for each other, had been enough to drive him to the edge of ruin. He can't wipe the image of himself and Phil at the front of the aisle, he can't erase how his face looked, how happy and joyous he'd seemed at finally marrying the love of his life. Most of all, how Phil had looked just the same. 

He can't stand the fact that, the Dan and Phil of that universe get to start their married life together, and he can't even get home to his friend. 

He just wants his own couch, and his own laptop. He wants Phil watering the plants, and ignoring him completely if that's what it takes. 

He doesn't want this, he doesn't want to see any more. He had promised himself no more lying, no more going along with it.

Which is probably why, when Phil rolls over in bed to face him with sleepy eyes, Dan looks back at him with a stony expression and says, "I'm not your Dan. I come from a different universe and I think this whole world is based on a fanfiction trope." 

Admittedly, it's much too blunt a way to put it, so he isn't surprised at the time he spends afterwards trying to explain it, but eventually Phil seems to come to some kind of truce with it. 

"Say I believe you," Phil says, not really sounding like he does yet.

"Okay." 

"You mean that you're just… travelling through different universes?" 

Dan sighs, happy that at least Phil is going along with it, even if he doesn't fully believe it. 

"Yeah," he says, "I don't know why they're the ones I get, I don't know how it happened or even if I'm not just…. Dreaming all of it. But it's fanfiction, all the tropes and tags and things that they write about… they're happening to me." 

Phil pulls a face. 

"Yeah," Dan laughs, lamely, "some of those ones too. But I mostly just duck out of those quick." 

"How do you leave?" 

Dan rolls over and picks up his phone where it's charging on the bedside table. It's where he used to leave it whenever they were hanging out on Phil's bed back in the day. There was always a charger on this side too. Probably because Phil wanted to be able to plug it in regardless of which side he decided to sleep on but here… here it's because this is his side of the bed. 

"It comes from this website," Dan says, pulling it up to show Phil the page that says _domestic fluff_ and _established relationship_. He doesn't close it, simply puts his phone back down once Phil has finished looking. "To leave I just need to close the tab." 

Phil looks at him for a moment without saying anything. He looks Dan's face over from ear to ear and forehead to chin and then seemingly satisfied, he nods once. 

"Breakfast," he says, and leaves the bed. 

Dan follows him into the old familiar kitchen with the island and the clutter on the surfaces. Dan leans against the breakfast bar, and it makes him feel weird that it's just the same as he remembers. His body remembers the height of it, the angle he needs to be at to rest comfortably. It isn't the first thing that's felt surreal on this whole adventure, but for some reason it makes him feel odd anyway. 

He refuses to eat cereal, but does take the cup of coffee Phil makes him and sips it while Phil crunches on his bowl of Shreddies. They find their way to the couch. The small one, that they sit close together on despite there being a bigger one on the other side of the room. 

When Phil is finished, he puts his bowl on the floor and turns to face Dan at last. 

"I want to know more," he says. 

"Okay," Dan nods. He isn't sure that telling Phil is going to have any effect, but he has to try. He has to know whether coming clean about everything is the way to make all of this stop. To get home.

Phil's voice is quiet when he starts, like he's scared of what the answer might be to the question he's going to ask,"Do you think that the Dan in the universes you visit goes somewhere else when you arrive? Like, where is my Dan?" 

_Oh_ Dan hadn't thought of that, how Phil might feel about hearing that the Dan he'd been expecting isn't here.

"I'm not sure. Like, not to freak you out, but I kind of think maybe these worlds don't really exist. Or… that they always exist. They're stories, so they always play out, right? Regardless of what I do. The narrative will finish. So I suppose… yeah. Alright. Your Dan is out there somewhere."

Phil looks thoughtful, and he leans over to sweep a stray piece of hair out of Dan's face. Dan isn't expecting it, the gentle touch of Phil's cool fingers against his skin. It's far from the most surprising or shocking way that he's been touched by a Phil in one of these universes, but it makes something ping inside his chest anyway. 

"That's good to know," Phil says. "I'd miss him if he went away for real." 

Dan thinks perhaps Phil is under the impression that he's talking nonsense, or that he's had a bad dream. That he is this universe's Dan after all. 

Maybe he is, maybe once he's here he _becomes_ this Dan, except for the fact that all of his memories still belong to the world he came from. He doesn't know, and he'll probably never know, but either way it still feels wrong. He doesn't fit here, with this Phil. 

"I'm sure he'd miss you too," Dan says, "I miss my Phil. It's been odd, experiencing our… um, relationship, so differently."

Phil cocks his head, so young and quizzical. He used to look at Dan like that a lot in the old days. He's tiny, in his blue t-shirt. He looks smaller and younger and Dan wants to protect him, but there are still some lingering memories of what it was like here, how he often wanted Phil to protect him most of the time. From university, and adult decisions. They'd hidden from the world on these couches and in this room more times than he can count.

"What do you mean?" Phil says. 

"It's been interesting seeing our relationship, in lots of different…. Forms." 

"So in these other worlds," Phil asks, cottoning on quicker than Dan thought he might, "We're not together?" 

It startles him, a bit, and Dan isn't sure where to start with the story.

"Actually, we're together in almost all of them. Or we were, or we're going to be. Except…" 

"Except what?" 

Dan takes a breath. He crosses one leg over the other and folds his arms over his chest as if to protect himself. "Except mine. The real world, the one not based on fanfiction." 

"We're not together there?" 

"No." 

"Did we break up?" 

Dan shakes his head. He looks down at his lap, at the three quarter length jogging pants he has on, and the white trainer socks pulled over his long feet. He looks smaller too, more so than he remembers being considering he'd always thought himself too big, taking up too much space. 

"No Phil, we were never together. It's two thousand and nineteen, and we never had this. We weren't together here, or before, or in our next apartment—" 

Phil leans forward and there is suddenly a soft palm overtop of Dan's parted mouth. 

"Spoilers," Phil says, "I don't want to know about the future. What if you jinx it? Or you tell me the future and I know how I'm going to die?" 

Dan wriggles out from under him, "don't be a complete idiot," he grins, "I don't know how you're going to die." 

"Well, I can't be too careful if I'm dealing with a time traveller, can I?" 

"Not a time traveller," Dan says, sighing, "I'm… I don't know. Maybe I'm in the computer, or the web page or something. Maybe I died and this is hell and my punishment is to play out all the universes in which Phil and I could have been together, but never have it be real." 

Phil's hand is still on his face. It's lower now, on the edge of his jaw, long fingers grazing his neck. Phil tugs at him, and Dan goes easily into a kiss. 

He's been honest, right? So it doesn't count.

He wonders if Phil thinks about how weird it is, that they aren't the Dan and Phil that belong to each other, but there are still _a_ Dan and Phil, finding each other in whatever universe they happen to be in. Maybe it doesn't matter, maybe Dans belong with Phils in some configuration but the universe, or the multiverse, doesn't quite care which one is where. As long as one Dan is with one Phil.

When they part, with the soft smack of lips and the final stroke of Phil's thumb against his skin, Phil blinks at him. 

"How do you know your world is the one that's real?" he asks. 

"What?" 

"I just mean… you're assuming that the universe you come from is the right one. The definitive one, where all of these others are alternate universes to the one you come from. But from where I sit, there isn't a universe I can imagine where we aren't together, haven't always been together. What kind of stupid universe do you come from where I didn't tell you how completely crazy I was about you from the start?" 

Dan has to bite down on his bottom lip. His eyes sting with the kind of tears he knows will be big, and never ending if he lets them fall.

"Phil…" he says, voice wavering. 

"Sorry," Phil says, "I don't want to bring down where you're from, and I am glad to hear that we are still best friends in your universe. Because… well, we are here too." 

"You are?" 

"Yeah," Phil says, nodding enthusiastically, "are there any universes you've been to where we aren't?"

"There are some where we aren't…. Yet," Dan says, sniffing. 

"But we will be," Phil says, confidently. "We always will be. There isn't any where, any time, any world, where we aren't in each other's lives." 

"Because it's fanfic," Dan says, "Obviously." 

Phil shakes his head, resting the flat of his palm against Dan's knee and squeezing slightly. "Do you believe that?" 

Dan's eyes flutter shut. A hot, warm tear falls down his cheek and he shudders with it. He shakes his head, the dam breaking on his sobs, and Phil reaches out to hold him. 

"I think I'm in love with you," Dan says into the fabric of Phil's shirt. 

Phil just rocks him gently, and sweeps a wide palm over the space between is shoulder blades. 

"Not you," Dan continues, "I mean… not really. My Phil, I think I'm in love with my Phil. And honestly it's…" 

"It's what?" Phil says when Dan trails off. 

Dan shifts so that he's resting his cheek on Phil's collarbone and Phil wraps his arms around him a little tighter. He feels safe, protected, like he always does with Phil. Phil is the one person he trusts more than anyone, who understands him and likes his despite the mess that he can often be. 

"It's killing me that we don't have what you do," Dan says, "That back in the beginning my Phil didn't want me, we didn't get our fairytale beginning, or happy ending. He didn't want me. He _doesn't_ want me." 

"You know that for sure?" Phil says. 

"Yes," Dan insists, pushing past thoughts niggling at him, "Yes, I do." 

"How?"

"Because, he doesn't. It's just… trust me." 

Phil's hand pauses on Dan's back but it stays pressed to him, he keeps Dan's body cradled against him and there is no rush for Dan to move or do anything until he is ready. 

"In every universe," Phil says, "every one you've been to we are either together, or going to be together. What makes your universe the exception?" 

Dan feels the bottom drop out of his stomach, the world feels like it has tilted on its axis, and he pulls away from Phil's grip to look him in the face. His cheeks are warm and tight with the dried tears, and his eyes still feel wet, but there is something unspoken trapped in his throat. 

"I…" Dan says. 

"Maybe it isn't," Phil says, "Maybe, like you said, the narrative just has to play out." 

Dan laughs through his nose, a derisive chuckle, "The narrative has played out," Dan says, "Apparently it's the one where I've fallen in love with my flatmate and business partner. The tags would be angst and unrequited pining." 

"Do you ever let the stories happen?" Phil asks, pulling one leg up onto the couch and hugging his knee. "Do you ever wait to see what will happen or do you just…" 

"Fuck and move on?" 

"Dan!" 

Phil's voice is high-pitched. He sounds just like Phil always does when Dan says something crude when he isn't expecting it. It makes Dan's heart ache.

"Sorry," Dan says, "But… yeah. I guess I just… It feels wrong to stay. Like, you want your Dan back, right?" 

Phil blinks, resting his chin on his knee and nodding with a closed mouth. "Mm Hm," he hums. 

"And I'm sure he wants to come back." 

"But what would happen?" Phil says, "What would happen if you just picked a universe and… you stayed there. What if you decided to play one out?" 

"I don't know." 

"Maybe you should find out," Phil says, "Maybe things end happier than you expect. Or maybe you can just… make a life somewhere similar to your world. If you can't get back, maybe you just… find somewhere else." 

The thought of never getting home again makes Dan feel sick. He wants to be home, he wants his Phil and the life that he remembers. But he could also want something else, if he allowed himself to dream it was possible. 

"I see that," Phil says, because no matter which Dan he is, Phils always understands him. 

"What?" 

"You're thinking of something, a place where you would want to stay." 

"I don't know," Dan says, chewing on the edge of his thumbnail and pulling his phone from his pocket. 

"You do. Go on, where is it?" 

Dan looks down at his phone, at the red and white web page already loaded on the screen. He can't navigate to anything, he can't change what fic is already there, or go to a different one, but he knows there are infinite possibilities, any world he might be able to imagine probably exists. 

"At the beginning," Dan says. "I'd want…" 

"Think really hard," Phil says, his hand closing around Dan's on the phone. "Think really hard about where you want to go, and close the window. Maybe you'll end up there, you never know." 

"And if I don't?" 

"Then you won't have lost anything." 

Dan looks into Phil's familiar blue eyes and leans in to kiss him, slow and gentle. 

"Thank you," he says.

Then, with Phil's soft fingers wrapped around his, he thinks of a memory long buried, a moment when everything could have changed, and he presses down on his screen. 

Phil's grip fades, but the sensation lingers as the world slips away. 

_Whoosh._


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up that there will now be 16 chapters of this as this chapter is being split into two as it got too long.

Dan wakes on a train wearing a plaid shirt and resting his aching head on the window. He has no way of knowing where he's headed, but the familiar messenger bag by his side, and the station approaching at the window, are enough to give him a clue. 

His phone vibrates against his leg, and he reaches in his pocket to retrieve it as the train shudders to a stop on the platform. The ceiling stretches out high above him, arches and windows. Dan would recognise it anywhere. 

**Phil, 12:40pm**  
Your train just got in ^_^   
Meet you by the doors

Dan knows which doors he means. He knows that Phil can't get on the platform without a ticket because big glass doors separate the trains from the main concourse where the shops and the Metro entrance are. 

He hadn't known that the first time. He hadn't understood which door, or where he was supposed to go, so he'd just followed the crowds from the train and let the flow of it carry him the right way. 

He does the same now. 

At the door he fumbles for his ticket to show the doorman, but he's uninterested and ushers Dan through without so much as a glance. Dan steps out through the door and onto the brightly lit, wide hall he knows so well. It's a bit different than it is in 2019, but similar enough. There is a chocolate shop opposite, and he knows there is a Starbucks around the back but for the moment, all he can see is a wide smile, messy black hair, and a pair of bright blue eyes descending on him. 

Dan knows how this conversation went. He knows who said what and what came after, but this is a chance to be braver, to change it. 

He reaches out as soon as Phil is close enough and pulls. It's proprietary, far too familiar for how little they know each other at this point, but Dan is through pretending he doesn't want the things he wants. 

Because the truth of it, the thing he's coming to realise with painful clarity is that this feeling isn't new. He'd denied himself back then, had shoved it down and run from it because it scared him. Phil was the first person to accept him, to make no judgements and ask nothing of him but for him to be exactly as he was. It had been wonderful and terrifying. So he shoved away how he felt, scared that if that feeling wasn't returned he would lose the one person he trusted more than anyone else. He convinced himself that of course Phil didn't feel the same way, and maybe in his universe he didn't, but in this one, one based on fanfiction and the kind of story people paint about him, he does. Or he will.

So this time, Dan isn't making that mistake. 

He wraps his arms around Phil, pulling him into a fierce hug that is probably a touch too tight, but Phil returns it with the same amount of enthusiasm. 

"Hi," Phil says as they part. 

Dan doesn't want to let go. He wants to cling to Phil like this forever, but he lets his hands slide from Phil's shirt and falls into step beside him. 

"Hi," he says. 

"You had fun on the train," Phil says. 

Dan nods, remembering that yes, he'd tweeted something like that back in the day because he was so nervous that he was trying to convince himself that the train was the fun part. That the most fun wasn't waiting for him at the other end. 

"Yeah it was alright," Dan shrugs. "I'm happy I'm here though." 

Phil pauses, misses a step in his stride and blinks at Dan. Then he smiles, wide again, and leans in to bite at Dan's shoulder gently. 

If Dan thought the hug was too forward it's got nothing on a nervous Phil. 

It's funny, he knows Phil so well now that he can recognise easily the way that he moves his hands a touch too much, how he gets tactile and bumps their shoulders together while they're talking. He knows that it means Phil is nervous, even though Dan hadn't thought Phil had been nervous at the time at all. 

And maybe it's just the way he's written here. Or maybe it's that Dan had been so nervous himself, so scared to lose control of his limbs and step too close, that he hadn't noticed Phil drifting towards him the whole day. 

They giggle their way through a coffee in Starbucks, and Dan enjoys the way Phil blushes and says all the wrong things. Part of him wants to call Phil out on it like he would back home, but the other part enjoys watching him run a hand through his fringe and flick his hair out of his eyes. 

They take a selfie at the Apple store and Dan has to remember to take a step back. It's odd to see himself as that small, scared person when he feels so different inside his head. 

On the way to the surprise Phil has planned - which Dan knows is going to be a drink way up on the twenty third floor that neither of them can really afford - Dan lets his knuckles graze the back of Phil's hand and gets giddy with the possibility of it all. 

The sunset is just as beautiful as he remembers, but this time he watches it with his leg outstretched and the side of his foot pressed delicately against Phil's, Phil presses back and they joke about buying the most expensive champagne and living their fancy lives. 

Phil is still all angles. His elbows and knees jerk and his fingers move when he talks. He smells like that old cologne he used to use but doesn't anymore, and the fragrance of his shampoo is much stronger when he has this much hair. 

Dan wants to bury his face in it and inhale, he wants to know how this story ends, to rush through to see if it all works out in the way that he hopes but he's enjoying the gentle turn of each page. So he settles for looking out across the horizon of the city where the lights are coming on and illuminating the world while they sit up here above it all where nothing can touch them. 

Back on the street and Dan takes Phil's hand, because he can, because in this story he wants to make the choices that he didn't last time. The street is quiet, and they let go before it gets busy again, but for a few short minutes they press their palms together and Phil tightens his fingers like he's afraid Dan will let go. 

The wheel is next. Dan knows that it is because he's done this before, but something feels different. Trepidation swirls in his stomach in the line, and he barely says a word for their entire ascent. 

"Are you okay?" Phil asks.

Dan nods. They're crammed together on one side of the carriage even though there is a perfectly serviceable seat on the other side. Phil has his legs stretched out and Dan's are next to them, shoes tapping together. 

"I want to try something," Dan says. 

They both know what's coming, and Dan makes his bravery stretch to keeping eye contact as he says it, to make sure that Phil wants it too. 

Phil's lips part, and Dan watches his shoulders rise and fall with a sigh that looks like he's bracing himself. Dan feels like he needs to do the same. 

"Okay," Phil whispers, the wind coming in through the small open window above the door and ruffling the black strands of hair on the top of his head. 

When Dan finally kisses Phil it feels like relief. Like a long exhale after holding his breath for almost a decade. It wells up in his chest, Phil pressing them as close together as they can get on the tiny seat. He feels it for himself, for the ache and longing he's been hiding, for the sad lost feeling he has knowing that he could have had this if he'd just been brave enough, but he also feels it for the Dan in this timeline. He knows that he is small and afraid, trying to make himself smaller and smaller over time, less of himself because himself doesn't fit with what the world wants. 

And here is Phil. He doesn't want anything except what Dan is willing to give, but he kisses back like it is also a relief for him too. Like he's been waiting for it. 

"Oh," Phil says, when they finally part. 

It isn't until they are on their descent, nd Dan moves away not because he wants to, but because the door to the carriage opens and it's time to leave. 

They don't talk about it straight away. They dance around it all the way back to Phil's parents house, moving in and out of each other's space. Phil's knuckles brush his, their shoulders touch. There is eye contact that leaves Dan's knees a little unsteady, and he stays that was until he's standing the foyer of Phil's house. 

It's supposed to be new to him, but he's actually seen it all before. So the only thing new is the expression on Phil's face, the hungry tug of his mouth, the flick of his eyes down to Dan's lips and back up to stare intently into his eyes. 

He isn't sure who moves first. Dan's arms definitely reach out to him, and his fingertips curl into Phil's shirt, but Phil stalks him backwards until his back is against the closed door, the handle poking him in the back, and their lips slam together. 

It's raw and unguarded. Dan doesn't concentrate on what he's doing, he doesn't try to go at the task with too much finesse, he just follows every instinct he has to pull Phil against him from hip to chest and feel the firm planes of his body under his hands. 

Phil's mouth is warm, and wet. It's familiar by this point, as familiar as the house, but it feels new all the same. It feels like this _is_ the first time. Like he hasn't systematically made his way through numerous worlds, and slept with so many variations of Phil that he's lost count. 

He could be that scared eighteen year old again. Wanting Phil, but this time not filled with the fear that had made it feel impossible to do this the first time. 

Because that is the truth. This could have happened back then, he could have taken that step on the wheel and they could have been everything they were supposed to from the beginning. Dan let everything outside overwhelm him, he thought too much about what it would mean and whether it was worth the gamble to put himself out there and he just… hadn't. 

It's different now. Not only does he have the embedded life experience to know that sometimes it's worth taking the risk, but he also has the benefit of knowing that it will work out. They end up together, they're meant to be together. Now, and always. 

In every universe except, as he has learned, the one he's from. He isn't sure why his is the exception, he isn't sure how he ended up here or why or if this is what was meant to happen, but he knows that he has a chance to do this all over, to rewrite history. 

Dan's hands shake like it's the first time. He touches Phil's waist, his hips, sliding up his back to grasp as his shoulders, the nape of his neck, never settling, never steady and sure because his heart is beating a million miles an hour half-scared Phil is going to pull away. 

It's never been like this. It's never felt like it was _Phil_ before. Not really. He's had glimpses of it, the odd moment where he was shaken to his core by how much the version he was with reminded him of the one back home but this Phil…. This one is everything he remembers. 

Phil is shaking too, and biting at his lips, clawing at him with long fingers because that's what Phil does when he's scared too. 

"Dan," Phil says, gasping out his name as they part. He doesn't move away, his hands are on Dan's hips, their bodies pulled tight together. 

Dan can already feel how hard Phil is against him, how he is also straining, aching, in response. 

"Yeah," Dan nods, answering the question Phil hasn't really vocalised but means all the same. 

"Is this too fast?" Phil says. 

Dan's heart aches, he feels as if something has turned upside down in his chest because Phil is just so earnest and so concerned. He's Phil, constantly looking out for Dan in every situation. 

"Does it feel fast?" Dan says. 

He does need to ask, because it's been a decade for him, a decade and a multitude of universes. It hasn't been that for this Phil. 

Phil shakes his head. Hair in his eyes, close enough that Dan can feel it brushing his forehead. 

"It's been _months,_ " Phil says, "I wanted you every time you went on Skype. And I—" 

Dan cuts him off, kissing him. He remembers those Skype calls, he remembers the hours they spent on them. He remembers finding some bravery and attempting flirting only to have it dissolve once they were finally in the same space. 

Not this time. 

"Yeah," Dan says, "me too." 

Phil takes him by the hand and Dan is happy to follow him up the stairs.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **tags for this chapter:** first time, cherry, second chances

Dan drops his bag on Phil's god awful green carpet and goes easily when Phil maneuvers him towards the bed. Phil's hand skates up his chest, Phil shifting into the space between his spread knees and bending down low over him to kiss him again as Dan sits gingerly on the edge of the mattress. 

Dan finds his hands on Phil's body again. Spanning the line of his ribs, pushing his hands underneath the shirt Phil is wearing as Phil eases Dan's shirt down his shoulders. They pause, laughing softly as Dan's shirt gets stuck around his elbows and Phil needs to unbutton his to take it off. Dan takes the opportunity to pull his t-shirt over his head as Phil climbs onto the duvet beside him. They're laughing, enjoying each other's company with shy giggles until they aren't laughing anymore. 

Phil takes Dan's face in his hands and kisses him so sweetly, rolling over him so that Dan lands with his back flat on Phil's pillow and Phil is propped up over him. 

A soft moan makes it way up out of Dan's throat and Phil pulls back to look at him. His pupils are dark, hungry, and he licks at his bottom lip. 

"Dan," Phil says again. 

Phil has said his name in so many different ways over the years, but Dan isn't sure he's ever heard it quite like this. There's something broken about it, cracked with feeling. 

Dan reaches up and uses the back of his index finger to move the hair of Phil's fringe out of his eyes. He's younger here, only twenty two, without any of the age and experience in his eyes that Dan is used to. But here, Dan is younger too. They are both smaller, made of angles and nervous joints. 

"I'm really happy that I'm here," Dan says. 

Phil holds his gaze for a moment. His arms are either side of Dan's head and he shifts his hips to line them up with Dan's so that Dan can feel how his body is responding. His is responding in just the same way, trapped in skinny jeans, but he's full and hard and he _wants_.

"Me too," Phil nods, and kisses him again. 

This time he drops his weight so that their bare chests press together. It takes Dan's breath away and he gasps into Phil's mouth when all of that warm, soft skin slides against him. Phil pets at him, running his hand down Dan's arm, tipping himself to the side so that he can drag the tips of his fingers across Dan's collarbone, then delicately over the tight nub of his nipple. 

Dan is shaking. He feels just as wound up and nervous as he might have been if this had happened for real. He bites down gently of Phil's plush bottom lip and Phil makes a sound in his throat that goes directly to Dan's cock. 

"Please," Dan says, though not even sure what he's asking for. 

"Yeah," Phil replies, "I will, I…" 

Phil's hand continues it's path down over the skin on Dan's stomach, and then reaches the button on his jeans. He pauses only for a second, as if steeling himself, before popping the button open. 

It's all he needs. After the initial moment of hesitation, Phil seems to find whatever courage it is he can and tug at Dan's jeans until they, and his underwear, are pulled down below his arse. Phil is looking at him, taking in the sight of his cock, and his thighs, and he looks mesmerised. 

"Fuck," Phil says, softly. 

Dan wants to feel self-conscious. There's a small part of his brain that thinks he probably should, but in reality he can't get enough of that look on Phil's face. Phil _wants_ him. Scrawny, young, inexperienced him. Right from the start. 

"I might die if you don't get on with it," Dan warns. 

Phil grins at him, cheeky and just like he's used to from his best friend. Because Phil _is_ his best friend. Even here, even like this, even with that hungry wanting look in his eyes he is still Dan's best friend before he is anything else. 

It's that that had made is so impossible for him to do this the first time round. He knew Phil was his best friend almost instantly. He accepted Dan, without question, in a way that absolutely no one before had. And Dan couldn't risk losing that by attempting to make their relationship something more than what it already was. But Phil is hovering over him now, lips kiss-swollen and pink, eyes taking in Dan's bare skin with a ravenous kind of interest, and he's still Dan's best friend.

He always will be, Dan thinks. 

"Do you want me to use something?" Phil asks. 

"Oh," Dan replies, caught off guard. "Like a condom?" 

"Er, yeah," Phil nods, "That too. If you want. But I meant... Like…" 

His cheeks are a pretty shade of pink and Dan laughs at him, just the tiniest amount. 

"Lube?" he says, one side of his mouth raising into a laugh in the way it does sometimes, unbidden. 

It's fun being the experienced one. He knows from a decade of friendship that Phil has a little bit of knowledge about these things at this age, but the real Dan had next to none. A few fumbles in the dark, quiet shameful things he hadn't admitted to himself. 

But here he has his own thoughts and memories, some of those even include Phil if you count the ones from the alternate realities he's been skipping through. So it doesn't shock him as much to discuss the lube situation as it seems to with Phil. 

Dan wants to guide him through this, but he knows to a certain extent it has to be Phil. If he wants to change this, if he wants to do this now in the way that he was too scared to do before, it has to be like it would have been. 

Phil shrugs, "If you want. Do you ever?" 

"Sometimes," Dan says. 

He hadn't, back then. It had been something he didn't discover until he later but he certainly wants it now. 

Phil reaches over into the bedside drawer and pulls out a bottle of something that sends Dan into a fit of laughter, curling in on himself. 

"Really?" he says, taking it from Phil's hand. 

He uncaps it, and sniffs. It's sickly sweet and overly sticky, sugary with a chemically fake interpretation of the scent it's supposed to be. 

"I like cherry," Phil says in defense. 

"This isn't cherry, Phil. This is chemicals." 

"We don't have to…"

Dan shakes his head fondly and presses the bottle back into Phil hand.

"Please Phil," he says, "use the fake ass cherry lube to get me off." 

If Phil is shocked by how forthright Dan is being he doesn't show it. Instead, he looks like he loves it, like he likes the thrill that it gives him to hear Dan say the things he's sometimes scared to. 

Phil squeezes lube onto his hand, and it's Dan's turn to be mesmerised when Phil reaches down to take Dan's cock in his hand. The noise he makes upon the contact is embarrassing, but Phil looks pleased and kisses Dan hungrily, moving his hand over the head, gliding with wet lube smoothing the way. 

Dan spread his legs a little, hitching one ankle up and over Phil 's. He's a little restricted by his jeans still around his mid-thigh but he wants Phil nearer. He loops one hand in the hair at the nape of Phil's neck, and the other twists in the duvet cover, winding it around his fingers as his whole body thrums under Phil's ministrations. 

Phil drops kisses on his collar bone, grazes his teeth on Dan's neck and sucks lightly at the space below his ear. All while moving his hand slowly and reverently over his cock. It's exploratory, somewhat timid. There is none of the bravado he's seen in other universes, none of the practised motion of an established relationship, nor the breaking tension of those where they are forced together by circumstance or casual sexual encounters. 

This is something different. 

Here, Phil takes his time because he wants to know, to learn. He plays Dan's body like an instrument he's only just taken up but wants to be an expert in. 

"You okay?" Phil asks, when Dan lets out a shuddery breath. 

"Yeah," Dan nods, "keep going, so good." 

Phil has perhaps used a touch too much lube. It's sticky, and it's spreading all over him, but Dan is so lost in how good it feels to have Phil this close, breathing hotly on his neck and stroking him like all of his focus is on Dan. 

So much so, that his own erection is trapped, neglected, in his jeans. 

Dan reaches out for him, and Phil's hand stutters in its careful rhythm. The buttons on Phil's jeans give easily to Dan's insistent tugging and then Phil is bared to him. It's nothing Dan hasn't seen before, and he's pleased to find that this isn't one of those universes that has added any particular descriptions that might change anything about this part of Phil. 

Although he's seen it before, he still takes a moment to look. 

"Um," Phil says, after a few seconds have passed. 

"Sorry," Dan says, feeling his face grow hot. 

Dan runs the tips of his fingers along the side of Phil's cock from base to tip, feather-light and probably more teasing than he intends going by the noise Phil makes. It's a drawn-out groan, like Dan is killing him slowly. 

"You don't have to," Phil gasps, "If you're—" 

Dan cuts him off by straining his head up to capture Phil's mouth in a kiss, and simultaneously reaches for the fake-cherry scented lube. 

"I want to," Dan says, uncapping it. 

He probably uses just as much as Phil had, the substance flooding from the bottle a lot quicker than he intends so that everything is slippery and sticky when he finally gets his hand around Phil's cock. 

"Ugh," Phil says, his hand still around Dan, but slowing as he closes his eyes and his head tips back a fraction, baring his throat. 

"Okay?" Dan says. 

"Hmm." 

Phil looks back at him, blinking his eyes and flicking his hair out of the way. 

"You're…" Phil says, then stops, biting his lip. 

"What?" Dan asks. 

They're both touching each other slowly. Their wrists knock together a little bit before Phil shifts his weight and they comfortable tangle their legs together and angle their bodies so that there is enough room for them both to gently rock their hips into each other's palms. The same between them is slick with too much lube, the chemical scent of fake sickly sweet cherry filling the air, and there is a bead of sweat forming at Dan's hairline with how good he's feeling. 

"Nothing," Phil gasps, as Dan twists his wrist. "I was just going to say something stupid like… you're real."

"Didn't you think I was?" Dan asks him. 

Then he closes his eyes and grunts as Phil twists his hand a little too, as if trying it out. Dan thrusts his hips forward, biting down on his lip to stifle the noise that is threatening to make its way out of his mouth. 

"Not like this," Phil says, "I didn't think… I didn't want to hope. I would have been fine if you didn't…" 

"I know," Dan says, "me too." 

Dan wonders if it's supposed to be like this. It's slow and reverent, they're touching each other like they never want it to end, like they aren't eager to reach the ultimate, glorious end. Dan wonders if it should be more frenzied, they are young hot-blooded men with their hands on the flesh of the person they desire, surely there should be more… rush. 

But he has no desire to see this end. He could lay here and touch Phil forever, be touched by Phil forever. He's happy to let it go on for as long as Phil will let him. 

Phil drops closer, and mouths at the side of Dan's neck, breathing hot onto the sensitive skin. Right up next to his ear, Dan can hear him breathing heavily and his cock thrusts against Dan's hand a bit quicker. 

Dan swipes his thumb across the head of Phil's cock and Phil's other hand, the one still holding him up at the side of Dan's head, slips. Phil is laying the length of him now, the cramped space between them where both their hands are trapped is hot, and sticky with lube. It's slick too, and Dan thrusts his own hips, chasing any and all sensation he can. 

It's a mess of hands, cocks, hips, and the rise of fall of their chests as they pant breaths into each other's mouths. Dan can't tell if he's thrusting against his own hand, or Phil's, or if it's Phil's cock that is pressed up against the length of his, but it doesn't matter. 

They're both moving, chasing the pleasure coursing through their veins. Lube spread down to Dan's balls, smears over his thighs as it does to Phil. Dan thinks he'll never be able to smell that particular chemical scent again without thinking about how right this feels, how this was how it was always meant to be. 

Phil comes first. It surprises Dan because it feels like he's been building to this moment for a while. Perhaps for the last ten years, and he really does feel like he could go off at any moment. But Phil looks like something has exploded inside his head, his face twists in a gorgeous, unguarded display of the orgasm shooting through him, and his cock pumps warm and wet between them and it joins the sticky onslaught of cherry spread on their skin. 

Dan lasts a little longer. After Phil has stopped moving, pauses for a second to gather himself and then shifts his sensitive post-orgasm cock away from where Dan's hand is still loosely wrapped around it. 

He firms his own grip, and Dan thrust into the soft, slick plane of his palm. 

"Dan," Phil says again, but for what purpose Dan isn't sure. 

He isn't lost in it the way he sometimes is. The mounting razor edge of pleasure in his gut would usually send him spiraling into somewhere fuzzy and unknown, a fantasy place that only exists when he's this close of absolute oblivion. But now, his head is full of this moment. 

He's grounded in the culmination of everything that went before. This feels like the ending to it all, the place he's finally meant to be. 

Maybe it doesn't matter where he came from, maybe all that matters is that he's learned how it was supposed to go. He gets a second chance, which is more than can be said for most people. 

He gets Phil. Finally. 

Dan comes with his eyes locked on Phil's face. His eyes are the same blue-green-yellow they always are, his face both new and familiar all at the same time. 

And after, when they've cleaned up and climb into Phil's bed, when Phil wraps him up in his arms and Dan molds his body to the contours of Phil's, Dan's back to Phil's chest so that Dan feels safe for the first time in a long time, Dan feels the well of emotion behind his eyes and he breathes out like he's been holding it since the moment he woke up in his bed and didn't know why Phil was there with him. 

"I'm glad you're here," Phil says. 

He's said it before, but he sounds like he means it. He sounds just as overwhelmed and struck by how lucky his is as Dan is. 

"Me too," Dan says. 

Tomorrow they'll film a video. They'll eat toast and watch a movie and any number of things that Dan will have foresight of. But there will also be a lot of new things, moments Dan has no knowledge of at all. It's scary, and exciting, and Dan can't wait.

This is the story that gets to play out. No one closes a page, there is no whoosh of air, no tightening headache at his temples. Just the soft sound of Phil's breathing in his ear, and the delicate circles Phil's fingertips are making on his stomach.   
Dan falls asleep, ready at last for the rest of the story to unfold.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It got long again, so the number of chapters has gone up. To be completed tomorrow on the last day of fedij!!

Dan wakes in Phil's bed. His doesn't open his eyes straight away but he can see the sunlight beaming in, and he can feel the weight of Phil's arm over his waist. He's on his back, head cradled by a pillow and he brings his hand up to skim over the soft skin on Phil's arm. He feels cool to the touch. 

His head is hurting. A throbbing at his temples and in a tightening band across the line of his brows, like the migraine he'd had that one time. He groans, because he doesn't want to be awake if he's still over-tired and wrung out with the emotions of the night before. He is eager for the day to start though, for the rest of the story to play out. 

"Dan?" 

Phil says his name and then the arm across his waist is moving. Dan tightens his fingers to keep it there and blinks open his eyes, immediately assaulted by a bright line that makes his head ache. 

"Huh?" 

The world doesn't look at is should. Gone is the garish shade of green and blue on Phil's bedroom walls, and in its place is the overwhelming blanket of white and too-bright lights in the ceiling. 

He tries to lift his head from the pillow, but find that it hurts too much to do it and so he resigns to keeping his head flat, but rolling it to look at Phil. 

Phil isn't laying in the bed next to him. He's sat on a blue plastic chair, his body tipped forward over the edge of the small bed Dan is apparently laying on. His arm is outstretched, thrown over Dan's waist as if done so casually, and Dan's hand is holding him in place. 

"Dan!" Phil says, eyes wide, mouth twitching into a cavern of surprise. 

Dan lets him go when he tugs at his arm again, and Phil retracts it easily, sliding from under Dan's fingers. He's on his feet, walking across the white room when Dan calls after him. 

"Don't go," Dan says. 

Phil turns back to him. His hair is a mess, pushed back off his face, but there are lines in it where his fingers have obviously dragged through it over and over. There are dark circles under his eyes, and he's wearing his glasses like he gave up on contact lenses ages ago. 

He looks his age. The one Dan remembers. 

"I have to get someone," Phil says. 

"No. You don't. Please." 

Phil wavers on the spot. He taps the inside of his wrist against his pocket, ruminating on whether or not to give in Dan's plea. 

"Are you in pain?" Phil asks. 

He hasn't left the room yet. Dan doesn't want him to go before he gets a grasp on what this world is. He hadn't closed the tab, but maybe falling asleep had the same effect, maybe the worlds can't continue if he isn't conscious to view them. 

"Only a headache," Dan says. 

Phil's head angles into a nod, a weak one, and then he comes back over towards the bed. Dan has worked out by now that he is in a hospital, though for what purpose he can't really work out. He knows that Phil is here, had been leaning on Dan's bed with his arm over him, but he isn't sure of the rules. 

"Okay," Dan says. "Which one is this?" 

He feels like he's been cheated. After everything, all the world jumping and the self discovery he's been on he thought he might finally get a chance to stay in the world he picked. He wants that back, he wants the quiet calm of Phil's old bedroom, the promise of what the next day might have brought, but instead he is here. 

It isn't fair, none of this is anywhere close to being deserved as far as Dan can see. Sure, he's done some questionable things in his life - as anyone has - but he doesn't think that the universe owes him this much trouble for it. 

"Which one what?" Phil asks.

"Which universe?" Dan says. He sounds angry even to his own ears, the possibility of that life with Phil ripped out from under him only to be hurtled into yet another shitty universe where he's going to have to work out what's going on and what he and Phil are to each other. 

Not anymore. He's not going along with any of this any more, he's done trying to play it safe and go along with the story as planned. If he can't get out of it by letting the story play out then he's going to rail against it as much as he can and hope that sets it right. 

"I don't—" Phil says. 

"Oh, come on Phil," Dan says, and he struggles up to sitting, just barely. His head is throbbing, blood pumping over and over on the sides of his head like he can feel it in time with his pulse. "What are we? Friends? Lovers? Are you the concerned person who knocked me over with your car? Maybe you work here as a chaplain, or are just a friendly nurse who took a liking to the good looking patient on one of the wards. What's the story?" 

Phil gapes at him. His jaw works momentarily, words trying to form in there but getting lost before they are. 

"Do you not know who you are?" Phil says. 

He sounds concerned, which is just bloody brilliant. Of course this Phil is just as lovely and attentive as all the others. Just once Dan would like to wake up in a universe where Phil was a real bastard. Even back in those ones where they don't get on Phil is still always endearingly lovely. He rather thinks its the Dan in those universes that needs to get his head out of his ass and see it for what it is. 

"I know who I am," Dan says, firmly, "But humour me. Who are you?" 

Phil's hand curls around the bar on the side of Dan's bed. His knuckles are white as he grips, as if steadying himself for the conversation he fears might be happening. Perhaps he thinks Dan has lost all sense, or memory. Maybe he's scared Dan has forgotten who he is. 

Dan doesn't care, he just wants answers. 

"I'm Phil," Phil says, "I'm… I'm you best friend." 

"Right. Of course." Dan folds his arms over his chest and closes his eyes as his headache pulses once more, "Let me guess. Slow burn, friends to lovers, pining and… what? Sick fic? Accidents? Don't tell me it's something overly dramatic like fatal illness or something. I absolutely cannot stand to be caught in one of those overly miserable dark fics. Misery lit, why is that even a thing?" 

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Phil says. "Can I go and get someone? I'm worried." 

Dan wrenches his eyes open and looks over to Phil with what he is sure is a steely expression. Phil does look worried, the lines in the corners of his eyes are deep with concern and he looks tired, wrung out, like he's been worried for some time. 

"Just… Can you tell me what's going on?" Dan says, trying to keep his voice a little quieter than it had been, "why I'm here?" 

"Oh, er, yeah," Phil sinks back down into the blue chair. His grip doesn't loosen on the bed, but Dan does want to reach out and cover his hand with his own. He doesn't, but its a near thing. "You slipped. There was a crash but I didn't think anything of it… and then you were a long time and I came to check but you—" 

Phil breaks off with a croak in his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut and they flush red in the waterline of his lower lashes. He doesn't cry, but Dan has seen Phil close to tears enough times to recognise that it isn't far off. 

"I'm sorry," Phil says, "I didn't realise you'd fallen so by the time I found you, you were… you wouldn't wake up. There was blood on the side of the bath and I didn't know what to do." 

"The bath?" Dan says. 

"I don't know, you must have slipped getting out of it. Maybe you don't remember. I called an ambulance and I made sure you were covered up, I promise." Phil attempts a weak chuckle here, "the ambulance driver was cute though, you'd have liked him." 

"I…" Dan can't find words. "I slipped in the bath." 

"Yeah. And then you wouldn't wake up, the doctor said you might have had a traumatic brain injury. You've been out cold for a couple of days and I've been… everyone was so worried." 

"Oh." 

Phil lets go of the bed and his hand drops down onto the mattress beside Dan. It takes everything in Dan not to reach out, it's become so commonplace for him to be allowed to touch Phil, to reach out and offer physical comfort or have it in return, that it feels weird now to have this unseen barrier between them. 

Not to mention that he's beginning to understand what this world is. Or at least, he's beginning to hope. 

"But Dan, you have to let me get someone. You're acting like you can't remember stuff and I… Can I please go and get someone?" 

Dan nods. He wants to believe that he's back, that the universe where they are friends and he slipped in the bath is his own, but he doesn't trust it. And there is a small part of him - though at the moment it is a loud part - that almost doesn't want to be back. He wants his second chance to put it right, he wants Phil's old bedroom and breakfast, he wants the way Phil was looking at him last night to last forever. 

But instead he's here. A place where he can't reach out to even touch Phil's hand because that isn't what they are. It's like he's behind a piece of glass, banging on it to try and get the attention of someone on the other side, but they can't hear him. 

Phil leaves the room, and comes back in with a harried looking nurse. 

"You're awake," she says, cheerfully. 

Dan submits himself to a series of observational checks. Blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and so on, and then waits for the doctor to visit and sits through a light being shined in his eyes, the wound on his head - which Dan discovers is on the left hand side above his ear, which accounts for the headache - examined in detail, and a lot of questions about how he is feeling. 

"Pretty good," he says. "A bit hungry, and my head is sore, but nothing overwhelming." 

The doctor smiles at him, and says that as long as Dan eats something, and has one more peaceful night of rest, he might be able to go home tomorrow. No promises, though. 

Dan keeps looking at Phil the entire time, sneaking glances over to him when the doctor is otherwise engaged. 

"Do you have someone at home to look after you?" the doctor asks. 

"I can," Phil says. "I'm his flatmate." 

Something in Dan's chest feels like it's punctured, deflated. Phil is his flatmate, and his best friend. He's his business partner, and pretty much the closest person to him even in this world and yet… He hates the way it sounds when Phil says it like that. 

"Good," the doctor nods, "that's good." 

"I did call your mum," Phil says, to Dan, "she knows that you aren't well and she's ready to come and see you any time. I just… I told her not to yet I thought that you'd…" 

"Thanks," Dan smiles at him, "Yeah. That was probably for the best. Until you knew what was going on." 

"If it had got worse, or gone on any longer I'd have called her again. I was probably going to ring her today." 

"I'll call her," Dan assures him, "cus I'm fine." 

The doctor clears his throat, "You've still got a bit of mending to do, and we'll need to keep an eye on you a bit, probably best for you to take it easy once you're home. I hope you don't mind running around after your flatmate for a bit." 

The last part is directed at Phil, who assures the doctor that he will absolutely be looking after Dan. Whatever he wants. 

Yeah, Dan thinks, sure. 

When the doctor leaves, Dan doesn't know what to say. He can't be sure he's really back, doesn't really know if he wants to be. 

"I'll, er, I'll get everything set up at home," Phil says. "Is there anything specific you want me to get?" 

He looks less bright than usual. His hair is a mess, he looks tired beyond belief, and he's even wearing a black jumper just to add to the pallor of his skin. 

"Are you okay?" Dan asks. 

"I'm fine," Phil says. 

"He's been sat here for days, your young man," the nurse says. 

She's tidying up the obs cart and getting ready to wheel it away to the next patient. They're in a private room, which strike Dan as a little odd because whenever he's had to stay in hospital before he's been on a ward with other people. Other people and their moans and groans, whereas here he's got his own room. 

It adds to the theory that he isn't actually back, that this is another fanfiction universe he's just stumbled into, but he doesn't want to assume. 

"He has?" Dan says. 

It's only after he's said it he wonders whether he should have corrected her assumption. He looks over at Phil who has gone pink on the tips of his high cheek bones but doesn't otherwise seem distressed. 

"Not _days_ ," Phil says. "I went home to change." 

The nurse raises an eyebrow at him like she doesn't believe a word of it. 

"You'll get a crick in your neck sleeping on the edge of his bed like that," she says, "why don't you go home tonight and get some proper rest now you know he's awake and feeling ab it better?" 

Phil flushes a bit more and then nods like he wishes she'd just leave. She does eventually, laughing to herself under her breath at how embarrassed Phil is, and then they are alone. 

"You slept here?" Dan says. 

"Not… I mean," He clears his throat, "A bit." 

"Why?" 

"Because I didn't know what was going to happen! I didn't find you for ages so I wasn't sure if you were going to—" Phil closes his mouth with a click and sinks back down into the chair he's apparently been spending all of his time in. 

"It's not your fault," Dan says, "It was an accident." 

"Yeah," Phil nods, "but I didn't find you for ages." 

"You were busy." 

"I was watering plants, Dan. It's not like it was super important. I mean, I was trying to give you some space after being trapped on tour with me for so long but I had no idea that this would happen." 

"You were trying to give me space?" Dan hitches himself up the pillows. His head still hurts, but whatever the tablets were the nurse had given him during his examination seem to be taking effect and it's reduced down do a dull thud. 

Phil shrugs, "yeah." 

"Oh. I… um, I thought you were just, you know, avoiding me." 

"Well, no." 

"Giving me space," Dan says, shaking his head, "That moronic. I don't need space you spork, I always want to hang out with you." 

"Good," Phil says, "because you've been hanging out with me solidly for the last few days, You just didn't know it." 

"I can't believe you stayed here. Why did they even let you? Don't they have visiting times?" 

"Probably," Phil says. He sits back in the chair ans stretches his legs out into the space under Dan's bed. There is a certain weight off his shoulders and his whole body sags like he's finally unfurling, "I don't think I'd have gotten away with it in a normal hospital. But I think here they don't mind so much, cus you're paying. Also, I'd like to have seen them try and kick me out." 

Dan pictures Phil, determined and upset and telling them that he's staying no matter what. It's an image that he can conjure if he tries, he's seen Phil get angry like that before. When it's something he's really passionate about. 

Granted, he usually carries it out via direct message, rather than face to face, but the intent is the same. 

Dan doesn't want to focus on why it was so important for Phil to stay. He felt guilty about not finding Dan for ages, even though that's idiotic, so he probably wanted to check that Dan wasn't going to die or something. Plus, they're friends. 

"We're not in a normal hospital?" he says, instead. 

"Private," Phil explains.

"This is going to cost an arm and a leg," Dan warns. 

"I don't care! I didn't care, I just wanted you to be alright. We've got tour money. I'll pay, I don't care." 

He looks so steadfast and determined, on the edge of a full blown yell, that Dan doesn't argue with him. Instead, he does what is now coming naturally to him and reaches out a hand. He barely skims the fabric of Phil's shirt at his bicep, but he can feel the warmth of Phil's body through the cotton and he hopes Phil takes it as he intends it. As comfort. 

"It's okay," Dan says, "It's fine." 

Dan pulls away again and Phil's hand comes up to cover the spot on his arm where Dan had touched him. 

"I…" Phil says. 

"You should go home and sleep," Dan says, "get some proper rest. Then you can come back and pick me up tomorrow, alright?" 

"Are you sure?" 

"Yeah," Dan says, forcing out a laugh to try and break the tension. He isn't even sure where it comes from, but it's most likely his fault. He just needs some space to sort through all of this nonsense, to find out if he can believe his own eyes, trust that he is back. "You're going to need to be in tip top form to wait on me hand and foot, you know." 

Phil narrows his eyes, but he meets Dan's laugh with one of his own. He dithers for a bit longer, making sure Dan is really okay, but eventually he does leave. He pauses by Dan's bed before he goes, stood over him. His hands are tapping on the edge of the mattress like he wants to do something else. 

Dan takes a breath, and opens his arms out. 

"Come here," he says. 

There's a split second where Dan thinks it might have been the wrong thing to do, but then Phil is folding inwards towards him, tucking his head into Dan's neck and breathing a long sigh into his skin. 

"I was so scared," he says. 

"I know," Dan says, and he rubs a hand up and down the wrinkles in Phil's shirt, in the space between his shoulder blades. He holds him close while he takes shaky breath after shaky breath, taking care of him the way the alternate Phil had taken care of him when he'd been having a breakdown. "I'm fine, though. Promise. Everything is going to be alright." 

Phil pulls away a few moments later, reluctant and slow. 

"Tomorrow," Dan says, "Come back then." 

"Yeah," Phil says, "It'll all be alright tomorrow." 

Dan finds his phone in the cupboard next to the bed when he's finally alone. He powers it on, because of course Phil has kept it charged for him, and opens it to a web page. 

Nothing loads automatically. It's just a blank google page, ready and waiting for him to enter whatever page it is he might like to visit. He types _what is the date today_ even though it's right there on his phone, and finds that it is in fact a few days after the last one he remembers before everything went screwy. 

He's back.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay look, I know you're probably sick of hearing this but this got long and I'm splitting it up again. I wanted to finish it but then Phil dropped his coming out video and I'm useless for the rest of the night. 
> 
> If Phil can extend pride month by making us all celebrate for the forseeable future, then I can extend fedij long enough to get this fic done. 
> 
> Hopefully tomorrow.

Dan wakes the next day in the same bed. If he hadn't been completely convinced the night before that he was firmly back in his own universe he is now, because nothing has changed. 

Well, that's not true. Dan has changed since the last time he was here, but he isn't sure about the application of it, so he's trying not to think about it too hard. 

Phil arrives as early as he possibly could. He's in clean clothes, his hair still slightly damp from the shower, but tidier than it had been yesterday, and the dark shadows under his eyes have faded down considerably. 

Phil spends the day in the blue chair next to Dan's bed. Getting discharged from the hospital takes way longer than Dan had expected it to and he has to go through two lots of painkiller administration while he and Phil talk, just to keep the headache at bay. 

"I hope we can take some of this stuff home with us," Phil says as they give him the second dose. 

"I think the doctor has prescribed you some for home use," the nurse says. 

She's a different one from yesterday, but still friendly and polite. She smiles at Phil and seems to know who he is. Not for the first time, Dan wonders what kind of impression Phil left on them when he brought Dan in. Phil is a lovely guy, and most people who meet him get along with him just fine, but the way the nurses are anyone would think they'd seen him in the most dreadful state and are just happy he's now feeling better. 

It's Dan that had been injured, not Phil. 

"Do you remember it?" Phil asks, when the tablets kick in again. 

"What?" 

"The fall." 

"Hm," Dan nods, "I remember." 

"What were you… I mean, what happened?" 

Dan bites down on his bottom lip. He's sat up today, and he could probably get dressed and feel a lot better if they'd let him but the nurses had advised against it in case he has to stay in again. 

"My laptop nearly fell," Dan shrugs. 

Phil's mouth crooks. It's quick, almost not there at all, but Dan sees it. 

"Alright," he says, "I'm assuming you… my laptop was unlocked." 

"Yeah," Phil says. "I didn't…. Not until after. When I cleaned up. I picked up your laptop and the screen powered on. Sorry." 

"It's fine," Dan says. "I mean… it's fucking embarrassing as hell and I'll probably never live it down for the rest of my life but…it's fine." 

Phil fiddles with the zip on the jacket he's wearing and looks down at his lap. "I read it," he says. 

"Oh?" 

"Hm. It was…" 

"Well written?" Dan suggests, giving him an out. 

Phil looks up at him again and Dan's breath catches in his throat with how focused his gaze is. Fuck. He'd wondered, last night when he was alone, if the feelings would even transfer over now that he was back. He wondered if it might just have been the crazy coma dreams, brought on by a head injury, that made him think he'd been in love with Phil at all. But here Phil is, looking at him intently with those blue eyes that he never gets sick of and… yeah. He's still in love with him. 

"I was going to say it was hot, actually." 

Dan splutters, and it devolves into a cough that makes his head hurt. Phil smirks at first, but then lays a hand on Dan's back to help soothe him through his coughing fit. When Dan is done, he doesn't move his hand back too far, and leaves it on the mattress next to Dan's hip. 

Dan doesn't really have a reply for that, and he knows that he's red in the face at this point from the coughing and the absolute shame, so he changes the subject as quickly as he can and asks Phil about anything he's missed in the last few days. 

They have to hang around for ages before they're finally allowed to go. The doctor comes by on his rounds and tells Dan that he's fine to leave, but that he has to come back for a check up in a few weeks and warns him not to push himself. 

"If you start to feel a bit bad again," he says, "just come straight back." 

Dan then has to wait an age for the nurse to bring him the medication he's being sent home with. Part of him wants to just say fuck it, and go home with nothing at all. Because then at least he would be _home_ , but the other part - which is mostly located in his head - says that he is still in a bit too much pain, and a bit too dizzy, to go home without them. 

Phil turns his chair sideways so that he can lean all the way back in it, and stretch his legs out in front of him. His arm rests on the bed still next to Dan's hip and Dan thinks about reaching out to touch him more than once. He doesn't, though, because it isn't sure how that would be received here. 

He doesn't want to mix up all of the other versions of Phil with his one, he doesn't want to assume that worlds created by fanfiction writers that can see a perfect, romantic end for them, translates over to the real world in any tangible way. 

Eventually Dan gets to leave. A friendly nurse who introduces himself as Aaron wheels Dan out of the hospital in a wheelchair even though Dan insists he doesn't need it. 

"It's just policy," Aaron says, a friendly smile on his face, patting the seat of the chair so that Dan can climb into it. 

Phil had brought Dan clothes so that at least he's not in the hospital gown anymore. He's wearing a soft black t-shirt and jogging bottoms, and his feet are slipped into some comfortable trainers, so he doesn't feel too embarrassed climbing from the bed and into the chair. 

"Can I push?" Phil asks. 

Aaron looks taken aback by the suggestion, but he stands aside to let Phil push Dan along until they reach the doors. They don't talk much on the way out, Phil seems quiet and hesitant the closer they get to the outside world. 

Aaron wishes them a fond farewell, taking the chair back from Phil, and pushing it back the way they'd come. There is a car waiting for them with an uber sticker on the door and Phil ushers Dan into it like he isn't allowed to be outside for too long. 

"Stop fussing," Dan says when they've set off. 

"I'm not," Phil shrugs, "just want to go home. I haven't been there much the last couple of days." 

It must have been scary for him, Dan thinks. Going through all of that. 

"You know I'm fine, right? I'm sorry if you were… it can't have been nice." 

Phil shakes his head and hums in that way that means 'it's fine'. He's looking out of the window, so he misses the expression on Dan's face upon hearing it. He knows it must be one of shock, or being thrown back to a dark tour bus and a noise Phil makes in every universe. 

So far, Dan has been trying to avoid thinking about the things that happened. He tries not to imagine Phil's bare skin, his soft touch, the noises he makes, but he can't help himself now. He is suddenly hot under his collar and he shifts in his seat as Phil continues to stare out at passing cars because he doesn't want to have this conversation in front of a stranger driving them how. 

Dan tries to steady himself, but it isn't really working. Part of him wants to tell Phil everything right this second, but now that he's back and he doesn't appear to be leaving he doesn't want to risk him looking at Dan like he's crazy, or thinking it's just a symptom of the head injury. 

Who knows, maybe it is. 

Phil doesn't look at him, but he does move in his seat so that his shoulder is pressed firmly against Dan's. He is warm, and solid, and Dan leans back against him, letting his head lol against the headrest the slightest amount. He still has a headache, and there are moments of dizziness but nothing too overwhelming. He's looking forward to being home, but he really will have to take it easy. 

When they arrive back Phil directs him to his bedroom. He's happy to see that all of the doors and the staircase appear to be in the right position, and his bedroom looks the same as it always does. 

"I can change your sheets if you want," Phil says. 

Dan is tired, even from the simple trip from the hospital. All the waiting around and the tension between them has taken it toll and for now, he just wants to lay down. 

"No," Dan says, climbing onto the bed and kick off his shoes, "it's fine." 

His duvet is the perfect weight, and he settles back into his own pillow and his own mattress for the first time in what feels like forever. He's experienced a lot of different beds lately, and although he feels a tug, a pang, for the one in Phil's old bedroom with its ugly sheets and not being quite big enough for the two of them, he can't deny how good it feels to be back here. 

Phil dithers. He's carrying Dan's backpack and he sets it down beside the bed. 

"Do you need anything?" he says, "Water? Tablets? Anything?" 

Dan wiggles against the sheets, getting comfortable and rolls his eyes at Phil. That has the unfortunate side effect of making the side of his head twinge and Phil notices. 

"What?" Phil says, alarmed. 

"I am fine," Dan grits out, "I have a bit of a headache but I think that's probably to be expected. I just want to have a lie down, okay?" 

He doesn't mean to snap at Phil, it's the last thing he wants. But honestly, everything is just a bit overwhelming and he doesn't know where to start with telling Phil why. 

Dan finally gets comfortable, slightly propped up, but reclined enough that when he closes his eyes he could imagine drifting off to sleep. There is a rustle of fabric, and the bed to the side of Dan dips down. He opens his eyes to see Phil perched on the edge of his mattress, worrying the side of his thumbnail. 

"Huh?" Dan says, eloquently. 

"It wasn't nice," Phil says, quietly. "It was… I was so scared." 

"You look tired," Dan says, because he does. 

Phil shakes his head. He looks better than he did yesterday but there is still something tight in the line of his shoulders, the corners of his eyes have tiny marks, spidery and prominent, surrounded by a pale grey-purple haze that comes from lack of sleep. 

Dan doesn't really know what he's doing. He blames it on his own tiredness, the headache, the fact that everything feels a bit much, but he tugs at Phil's t-shirt and shuffles over on the bed so that there is space for Phil to lie down next to him. 

Phil doesn't go easy, he looks at Dan intently like trying to work out whether he really does mean for Phil to join him in the bed. 

"Nap time," Dan says, attempting to make his voice sound as casual and nonchalant as he can. 

Phil lays down, slowly and hesitantly. He settles his head into the pillow that Dan has just vacated. He's on top of the duvet, and Dan's bed is large enough that they don't have to be squashed together, but he's close enough that Dan can feel the warmth of his body. 

"It's not your fault," Dan says, "and I'm fine." 

Phil isn't looking at him, but his eyes aren't shut. He's taken his glasses off but he's still staring at the ceiling fixedly, and he swallows harshly so that his adam's apple bobs. 

"Really," Dan insists. 

Dan turns on his side so that he is angled towards Phil's body. The duvet is pulled tight across him, like he's tucked in, and the dull throb of his head is merely background sensation to how comfortable he is. 

Phil nods, and looks over at him for a second before shifting minutely, and then closing his eyes. 

"Wake me if you need anything," Phil says.

"Hm," Dan agrees, "I will." 

Dan falls asleep to the sound of Phil's breathing, and when he wakes up an hour later he finds that Phil is asleep too. His arms have unfolded off his chest, and the arm nearest to Dan is pressed up against him and Dan's head is resting against his shoulder. 

He knows that he should move, because even the vaguest of cuddles with you best friend, when uninvited, probably isn't the right way to conduct yourself, but he'd be lying to himself if he said he hadn't missed being able to touch Phil. Even the tiniest amount. 

Dan lays there for a good ten minutes more before Phil starts to stir. When he does, Dan moves himself away from Phil a bit, just to put some space between them, and Phil's eyes blink open. He looks embarrassed at first, as if it hadn't been Dan's idea for them to go to sleep in the first place. 

"Feel better?" Dan says. 

"Do you?" 

Dan's head is still an ache in the background, but being this close to Phil is making him feel a whole lot better in so many other ways, so he smiles back at Phil and tells him that he does. 

"I should probably sort something out for dinner," Phil says. 

"Yeah. And I need a shower, I smell like hospital." 

Things feel a bit awkward. Phil gets up from the bed and he isn't looking back in Dan's direction when he nods to himself and puts his glasses back on. 

"Can you…" Phil starts, and then closes his mouth with a click. 

"What?" Dan asks. 

He sits up, and his head twinges again, but he tries not to flinch. 

"Nothing," Phil says, "It's stupid." 

"Phil. It's not." 

Phil takes a deep breath and turns to face him as Dan gets out of the bed and stands, lost, in the space between his bed and the entrance to the en suite bathroom. 

"I was just going to say, to ask, if you could... " the tips of Phil's ears have gone pink and he's having trouble looking at Dan directly in the eye. He seems to shake himself, rolls his eyes as his own hesitation and then just come out with it. "Don't lock the door. If you fall again I don't want to have to break the lock again." 

"You broke the lock?"

"Yes. Obviously." 

"Oh." 

Dan hadn't considered that. He hadn't thought about what it must have been like for Phil to call out for Dan and receive no reply from the other side of the locked door. How long had he waited? How many times had he called Dan's name before he decided to bust in the door? 

"Sorry," Phil shrugs. 

It feels natural when Dan reaches out to hug him. Phil seems reluctant at first, staying rigid and held taut, until Dan's arms encircle him fully and then he bends inward, collapses in and holds Dan tightly. 

"Thank you," Dan says, "you saved me." 

Dan thinks maybe he doesn't just mean now, or the head injury, but he doesn't expand on it. Instead, he just holds Phil tight and enjoys the way Phil's arms feel secure around him. Safe. 

Eventually Dan is allowed to shower, and the hot water feels heavenly. He is careful of his footing, and he doesn't distract himself with a laptop or anything other than the methodical washing of his hair and body. He does leave the door unlocked. 

When he comes out, Phil is making a good show of pretending he wasn't waiting with bated breath to see whether Dan survived his shower. 

"Thought you were in the kitchen," Dan says. 

He's only got a towel wrapped around his waist but he got over his hesitation about being naked around Phil a while ago. 

"I, er," Phil is looking anywhere but directly at him, Dan's never noticed that he does that before. "Came to get…" 

"You came to sneak about and check I hadn't fallen in the shower," Dan says. 

Phil's brows knit together for a fraction of a second, annoyed at being called out for his over protective actions. Then he grins. 

"Just came to check you didn't need your laptop in there," Phil says, "I could send you some links." 

Dan's face gets hot in a way that has nothing to do with the lingering heat of the shower and everything to do with the smirk on Phil's face. Phil retreats, happy to have diverted attention away from his embarrassing actions and onto Dan's. 

Dan doesn't want to think about the fact that Phil might have links. He's joking, right? 

He really does need to explain to Phil that reading fic about the two of them isn't something he does often. But it would feel like a bit of a lie considering he just spent two days in a coma dreaming about _being_ in fanfiction about them. 

They eat dinner that night in Dan's bedroom. Phil insists that Dan needs some more rest so he doesn't want him coming upstairs, just for tonight he says, and Dan concedes because Phil really does look quite insistent and also still a bit sad and worried, and he can't stand it. 

When it's finally time for Dan to go to bed for real, which is earlier than he usually would but head injuries are kind of tiring, Dan is finding, Phil only hesitates briefing at the doorway. Dan has the urge to ask him to stay, to pull him down once again and make him lay down so that Dan might rest his head against his shoulder and fall asleep to the sound of his breathing. 

It wasn't a thing he knew he wanted before. 

But he doesn't ask. He lets Phil go even though his chest aches a bit to see it, because that isn't what they are here, this isn't a world where that request would be met with a cheeky smile and rising sexual tension. It just isn't. 

When he sleeps he dreams of ferris wheels and cocktails on the twenty third story, he remembers the last night of his dream, the place he'd been determined to stay, the chemical smell of cherry and the soft touch of Phil's hands. He sees flashes of Phil's eyes in the dark, wishes he could once again be wrapped in his arms as he falls asleep and when he wakes up, the Phil from that world and the Phil from this one are so mixed up in his head that it aches to think of either of them. 

The pattern continues for a few days. Phil hovers, he keeps looking like Dan might break and doing things that suggests he isn't totally over the fact that none of this was his fault. He lets Dan go upstairs the next day, but mostly because Dan had adopted quite the angered expression at Phil's suggestion he stay in his bed for another day. 

"I'm fine," Dan says. "This is ridiculous." 

They sit in the lounge but Phil makes Dan put his feet up on the couch and won't sit there with him because Dan needs all the space to rest. There isn't an easy way that Dan can find to say that Phil's presence is what would make him feel best, so he lays there watching Netflix while Phil sits on the other seat determined to keep him company, but without invading his personal space. Like Dan is breakable. 

It goes on for a few days. He looks worried every time Dan goes to take a shower, and he hardly leaves Dan's side except for at night when Dan goes to bed. He leaves the room and Dan dreams about every variation of Phil he's met, mingles them together in his mind into a hybrid version of Phil, someone who wants him back. 

Dan isn't surprised that it only takes about a week for him to snap. 

"You need to stop," he says, when he exits the shower to find Phil standing in the hallway just outside his bedroom door. 

"I'm not doing anything." 

"You are," Dan says. He opens his drawer to pull out a pair of black boxers and pulls them on under the towel. When he's done, he discards the towel because it's frankly too much of a bother and he really doesn't care if Phil sees him mostly naked. 

Phil does that thing with his eyes again, but Dan mostly ignores it. 

"You're hovering," Dan says, finding a t-shirt in amongst all the other black t-shirts in his drawer. "I'm fine. My head has been mostly fine for days now. The stitches aren't even sore anymore." 

He taps the side of his head where the injury is to demonstrate. 

"That's great," Phil replies, nodding, "but you're not fully better yet." 

"What would make me fully better?" Dan says, "do I need to get a doctor to tell you I'm fine?" 

"The doctor told you to rest! He said I should take care of you for a bit."

"I don't think he really meant trying to watch me shower, mate." 

Dan hates the sound of his voice as soon as he says it. He's trying not to feel angry and resentful, but the truth is that maybe he is, a bit. He is glad to be back, he _is_ , but every night he's plagued with thoughts of what could have been, of all the memories he has of whatever fantasies he imagined while he was knocked out. 

And the dreams he's been having since he came back aren't the same. They aren't vivid or real, he can't feel the way he did in the other ones. These are just… dreams. Just pictures and the odd sensation to keep reminding him what he's lost, what he can't have here. 

He wants Phil. He is still in love with Phil, it's so apparent to him. And that has nothing to do with the head injury. 

"I—" Phil says, and then stops, just shaking his head and raising his eyebrows in an incredulous fashion. 

Dan pulls the shirt over his head and then rethinks how this conversation is going. He doesn't want to fight, he doesn't want Phil to feel bad about trying to help him. He just wants him to understand that Dan is fine, he doesn't have to keep doing this over-attentive thing. 

"Sorry, I'm just..." he sighs, "this whole thing just made me think about a lot of stuff. I'm in my head." 

"You were in your head before," Phil says. 

Was he? Dan can't remember. He remembers feeling lost when he came back from tour, bored and purposeless, he remembers missing hanging out with Phil because Phil hadn't been spending too much time with him. Although, Dan couldn't blame him after having spent all those months on tour forced together. Even best friends have their limits. 

"I… maybe a bit. I'm surprised you noticed." 

Okay, so Dan is still a little bit irritable. He can't seem to help it. 

"Why wouldn't I notice?" 

Phil seems genuinely perplexed, he cocks his head to the side and he's got one hand jammed in his jeans pocket. Dan can tell it's balled into a fist. 

"I dunno," Dan says. He's at his wardrobe trying to find some jeans. He's been wearing jogging bottoms for a week and while they are comfortable, and he'd wear them around the house regardless of the head injury, something is making him want to get dressed properly today. "You weren't… you seemed busy when we got back." 

"Busy?" 

Dan drags a pair of black jeans from a hanger and pulls them on to find that its the ripped pair. Whatever, they'll do. 

"Oh you know," Dan says, doing up his fly, "we didn't… hang out much." 

He sounds pathetic. Like he's a child asking his best friend why they play any more. He rolls his eyes and runs a hand through his wet curls to try and tame them into some kind of shape. It's going to be a fluffy day, probably, he needs a haircut. 

"I was giving you space," Phil says. 

He's said that before. Back at the hospital. This whole conversation is familiar, he's brought all of this up before but he doesn't really feel like he got a resolution. 

"You said. But… why?" 

"We'd been on tour. I thought you'd been sick of me after all of that and I—" he stops himself, closing his mouth sharply. "I just… thought it would be for the best for both of us to get a little space." 

"Well it's not. I mean, right now you're hovering around and it's doing my head in, but I don't need space from… hanging out with you." 

"Okay." 

"Why would you even… I never have before! Since when was that an issue for us?" 

Dan sounds a bit hysterical. Phil draws back half a step in the force of it and Dan can't blame him, but he also lets his hands hang down his sides, fists clenching and unclenching. 

"Let's go sit down," Phil says. "I think… I think we might need to talk about this. You're upset." 

"I'm not upset," Dan assures him, "I'm just… oh, I don't know. I'm in my head." 

"You want to get out of your head?" Phil asks. 

Dan nods. His hair drips a solitary drip of cold water down the back of his neck. 

"Then come talk to me," Phil says, "I want to hear it."


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **tags for this chapter:** friends to lovers

The lounge is bright with sunlight when they finally settle. Phil doesn't make him start talking right away, He brings him some cereal, coffee, and the tablets the hospital gave him, and they don't talk for a while. 

When they finally do, it's Dan that starts it. 

"I sometimes wonder what would happen if things had gone differently," Dan says. "I guess… well, I guess that's what has been on my mind." 

"With the tour?" Phil asks. 

He's on the other end of the couch. He hadn't made Dan lie down, and he's been perfectly happy to sit with him on the same piece of furniture. It's an improvement. 

"No. Not with the tour. The tour was great, I'm really happy we did it. I just mean… I suppose I mean everything. My whole… our whole lives." 

Phil's lips press into the tiniest, barely-there pout. Dan recognises it for what it is only because he knows Phil so well. 

"What would you want to change?"

_The beginning_ Dan thinks, but he doesn't say it out loud. It feels too much like a confession Phil doesn't want to hear. Or that he's too scared to say. 

"I don't know. I mean… I guess just some stuff. I kind of wish I could go back in time and make it turn out differently." 

Dan wants to shrink under the gaze Phil turns on him. He just stares at Dan like he's grown another head, or like he's wondering what the hell he's talking about. Dan is thrown back to the universe in which he told Phil everything, had confessed how he felt and what was going on and Phil held him tight and told him to wish for everything he'd ever wanted. 

"I get that," Phil says, eventually, "there is stuff I'd change too, I guess." 

Emboldened by the fact that Phil doesn't appear to be judging him too harshly, Dan decides to push it a little further. Not that he wouldn't trust Phil with everything, because of course he would, he just isn't sure what good it would do. 

"Do you ever think that the timeline we're living in might not be the… right one." 

"You think we're in the bad timeline?" Phil laughs. 

"No," Dan says, his tone far too earnest for the way Phil is attempting to joke with him. "Not really. I don't think it's _bad_ , I just… maybe we're the alternate reality. Maybe things were meant to go differently but in this universe they didn't." 

"Would that be so bad?" 

Dan shrugs. "I dunno. Maybe. Depends whether you think what should have happened is better I suppose." 

Phil chews his bottom lip and drums his fingers on the couch. A dull thud fills the air and he seems to be contemplating what to say next. 

"What would you change, Dan?" 

"Phil…" 

Dan can't bear to avoid the question another time, the look Phil is giving him is serious, and intense, and he thinks maybe Phil has some stuff he wants to say too. 

He daren't hope. 

_Who's to say your universe is the exception_ rings in his ears. 

"Go on," Phil says. 

Dan leans forward on his knees. He runs a hand through his still-damp hair, messing it up completely. 

"What if…" Dan says, so quiet that he's only mostly sure that Phil can hear it, "what if we went back and changed… the beginning." 

"You mean…" 

"Yeah." 

"Oh." 

Phil looks down at his hands, twining his fingers together. His nails are rough where he's been biting them for days, which isn't really like Phil at all. 

"Look," Dan says, getting up from his seat. "Forget it. Maybe I didn't mean it. I'm just… I've had too much time inside the house and I'm all—" 

Phil stands up, and he walks right into Dan's space so quickly that it catches Dan off guard and his words die in his throat. 

"The beginning," Phil says. His hands are elevated out in front of him, not touching Dan but moving uselessly as he talks. 

Phil is nervous. This is what Phil does when he's nervous. 

"What about it," Phil says. 

The only logical thing to do, the only thing that enters Dan's head to do is to reach out and take Phil's hand into his own to stop him flailing it about. There's a faint thrum, like he's shaking just the tiniest amount, and Dan squeezes his fingers gently. 

"Dan," Phil says, when he doesn't offer an answer, "please tell me that you… I think I might be going a bit mad." 

"Why?" 

"Because you're talking about time travel and changing everything about our lives… and I need to know whether you mean the same thing I do. Because…" Phil makes a frustrated noise and squeezes Dan's hand in response, "I was so scared." 

"About the accident?" Dan says, losing the thread of the conversation because Phil's hand is soft, but he's holding Dan's hand so tight like he's afraid he might let go. 

"No. Well, yes. But that isn't what I meant." 

Dan tips his head back and looks at the ceiling. He lets out a long, loud laugh right to the plaster because this is all ridiculous. 

"What did you mean, Phil?" He says, looking back at Phil, "fuck's sake this is just…"

"Yeah." 

They're just standing there, holding hands like it's the most normal thing in the world even though in this universe Dan isn't sure that's something they've ever done before. Phil is still vibrating with a kind of nervous energy and Dan just wants this to be easier. He doesn't know where to start though, after all this time and all of these worlds, it's still terrifying to take that leap. 

"I've thought about it before," Phil says. 

"What?" 

"Just… I was scared. I was only young, we both were. And there seemed to be a lot of… it was just a lot. And I liked you." 

Dan can't breathe. He doesn't know why it's so easy for Phil to come right out and say that when he hadn't even been sure that was what they were talking about. 

"I really liked you, Dan. You were… you _are_ the best person in the world. And I didn't want to just… ruin it. You're my best friend." 

Dan nods, "Yeah. You were, are, always. Whatever else… um, yeah." 

"Maybe there's an alternate reality where it did work out," Phil says. 

Dan can't help but laugh at that, right into Phil's confused face, "I think… uh, yeah. There…. There probably is." 

"Is that what you meant? That our timeline is the wrong one? Do you think that we— " Phil sighs, and his fingers go loose around Dan's hand. 

Phil thinks that Dan is saying that it's impossible in this universe. That it works out somewhere else, but not here. 

So what if this is the alternate. So what if it should have worked out right from the beginning but they'd both been too scared and too stupid to make it happen. They get a second chance, or a third, or a thousandth. There are infinite worlds out there where every eventuality plays out and so… why not here, too? Why can't this be one where it works out? 

Dan firms his grip and tugs. Phil stumbles over his feet but he falls into Dan's arms and that's all he'd been intending to do anyway. Dan slips an arm around Phil's waist and holds him steady and then, gently, like Phil is something to be scared away with any sharp movements, Dan presses his lips to Phil's mouth. 

It isn't like the last time. It isn't like any of the time before. It's a gentle fluttery thing that lasts for a second, and Phil doesn't immediately respond. Dan pulls back, nervous that he's read this all wrong and he's about to fuck up this timeline too. He's about to ruin the best friendship he's ever had over some stupid coma-induced daydreams about some idiotic fantasies that— 

Phil's lips crash into Dan's and his palm is on Dan's cheek. Phil can't seem to settle on a position so he kisses Dan one way and then the other. Dan kisses back, out of surprise at first and then because _oh God, Phil is kissing him._

He hangs on tight, going along for the ride as Phil explores his mouth, hands wandering over his shoulders, his back, up into his hair. Phil gasps when Dan's hand slips under his shirt and Dan pulls away go check everything is alright.

"It's good, I'm good," Phil says, smiling wide, eyes shining. 

Phil is warm under his hands. He doesn't want to let go, he wants to keep kissing Phil because it's somehow so much better than kissing all of the other versions. This is _his_ Phil. 

"I don't think our timeline is the wrong one," Dan says. 

Phil's fingers stroke through the hair on the back of Dan's neck, making him shiver. 

"It's not?" 

"No. I think… there is universe out there where we did this sooner, and I can't pretend I don't regret that. Just a bit." Dan bites down on his bottom lip and the taste of Phil lingers there. "But then, there are also universes where we never meet, or where we never… uh, anyway, I think I'm happy with this one." 

Phol shakes his head immediately, disagreeing, and Dan gets a jolt of fear that he might mean that he isn't happy, or that this isn't going where Dan thinks it is. Maybe isly doesn't mean anything after all. 

"I don't believe that," Phil says, he leans in so that their noses brush and Dan has to steady himself. It still makes his heart race to have Phil this close. "I can't believe there is a world where we haven't met. I would find you wherever you were." 

"You make it sound like you think this is… I dunno, fate or something." 

Phil shrugs, "maybe."

Dan rolls his eyes. It's typical of Phil to put it down to some cosmic plan of the universe and not their own dumb luck or just the wonderful statistical improbability of finding each other in a world so vast and complicated. 

He still thinks it's crazy that they did, that out of the whole world - or many worlds as the case may be - they found each other time and time again. But it's not fate, no overarching narrative of the universe brought them together. But bringing Phil around to that idea takes some effort.

Dan would usually argue, he'd usually take the time to explain to Phil why the maths of it all were just as spectacular as the proposed destiny, but today he can think of much better ways of shutting him up. 

Dan angles his head, and uses the hand on Phil's back, broad against all that warm, soft skin, to bring their mouths together again. 

Phil seems to have found a rhythm and an angle that works, but his hands still wander over Dan's back, drifting down to the dip of his waist and then slightly lower. Dan tips his hips forward under Phi's hands, pressing closer into Phil's body as his hands squeeze at the curve of his ass. 

"Sorry," Phil says, breathless.

His hands retreat, but Dan is quick to hum and shake his head, taking Phil's wrist in his hand to guide his palm back to where it had been. 

"It's fine," Dan says, a huff of amused breath escaping him, "I like it." 

"It isn't weird? I'm kind of… I wasn't sure if any of this was strange to you. Cus it's… me." 

Dan kisses the ridiculous nervous look off his face and can't help laughing against his mouth. 

"Oh Phil," he says, "No. It's… it's easier _because_ it's you." 

Phil's mouth works as if trying to form around words but he soon gives up and simply leans in to kiss Dan again, hands firmly wherever it is he wants to put them. Dan tucks himself closer to Phil's body and loses himself in it. 

Somehow they find their way back on the couch. Dan leaning back against the cushions with Phil in his lap. He's got one hand gripping on to Phil's hip, and the other sank deep into Phil's hair. Phil's arms are around his shoulders, and they're moving together. 

He's been hard for ages, and he can feel that Phil is too, pushed up against his stomach every time Phil moves. It could be uncomfortable, there could be some urgency, but he's happy to continue kissing Phil forever. 

It might go on forever, except that Dan gasps between kisses, and his head is swimming from lack of air. His face is flushed, his pulse rapid, so much so that his headache is creeping back to his temples. 

He must flinch, or something shows on his face for Phil to notice, because Phil is leaning back and away, his hand flat on Dan's chest to ease him back when Dan chases his mouth. 

Phil's lips look swollen, and Dan is sure his are much the same. There are finger tracks in his hair, and his cheeks are flushed. He's breathing a bit heavier than normal. He looks, Dan thinks, well kissed. Which is how it should be. 

"Your head?" Phil says. 

Dan very much does not want to stop. He can see from the look on Phil's face that if he tells him right now that he's got a headache Phil will most definitely put a stop to all the glorious kissing. Dan doesn't want to stop when he's only just been allowed to do it. It doesn't seem fair. 

"No," Dan says, "I'm fine." 

He places a hand over Phil's on his chest and turns his hand slowly, running fingers up Phil's arm leaving goosebumps in his wake. He tries to pull at him gently, to urge him back down to continue all of that wonderful kissing business, but Phil holds firm. 

"Dan," he says. 

He's got that stern Phil voice on, the one that brooks no argument. 

"Don't," Dan says, "I really am fine. It's just a headache." 

But Phil is already moving away, climbing off Dan's lap and sitting down next to him. Dan's lips feel sore from the kissing, bitten by the nibble of Phil's teeth, sucked and caressed by Phil's mouth over and over. He supposed that he looks well-kissed too. 

Phil doesn't keep the space between them for long. There is no hesitation in his hands as he puts Dan where he wants him, pulling and maneuvering him around so that Dan is resting against him, head against his chest and legs up on the couch. 

This isn't so bad, Dan thinks. He doesn't mind being forced to lay on the couch if he can snuggle up to Phil and have Phil's hands in his hair the way they are now, carefully avoiding the site of his injury. 

Dan sighs, half-contented, half-disappointed. 

"What?" Phil says. 

"Fucking head injury," Dan grumbles. "Not exactly sexy, is it?" 

"Is sexy what you were going for?" Phil asks, "because…" 

Phil fades off, just for a second. He clears his throat as if trying to find the courage, and Dan wishes he could see Phil's face. 

"You don't need to worry about that," Phil says, voice quiet. "I pretty much always think you're sexy." 

"Yeah?" 

"Hm." 

Dan smiles, wide and idiotically. Okay, maybe he's glad Phil can't see his face right now. 

"I… yeah. Same." 

Phil's lips press to the top of Dan's head. It feels easy, cosy and comfortable. It feels _right_. Like he really does truly belong here, right here in this universe where he doesn't have knowledge of what is to come, he isn't rewriting old mistakes, he's just… being. 

"Not really a good story for the timeline though," Dan points out after a while. 

Phil is stroking his hair, and Dan has arranged himself a little closer, and arm around Phil's waist, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt for no particular purpose. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Well… I just mean, if this were a story, we'd do the big confession bit and then we'd bang and the happily ever after would begin." 

Phil snorts, "don't say bang." 

Dan lifts his head to raise an eyebrow at Phil in challenge, "bang," he says, "screw, bonk, fuck." 

Phil pushes at him, trying to move out from underneath Dan's body. It descends into a bit of a tumble, Dan clinging to him and trying to prevent him leaving, and Phil not really trying to leave with any great effort. 

"No," Dan complains, "don't. I'm sorry, I'll behave." 

Phil winds up laying on the couch next to Dan with Dan half draped over him. There isn't really enough space for the two of them, and they are definitely going to have to relocate if Phil wants to tempt him into another headache curing nap, but it will do for the moment. They want to be near each other, to stroke fingertips over skin, tangle their legs together and press lazy kisses to whichever part of each other is closest. Because they can now. 

"You know this isn't a story," Phil says. 

"I mean, not in the same way," Dan says, thinking that with everywhere he's been lately, and everything he's experienced, he doesn't really know that for sure. Maybe all universes are just stories playing out. "This isn't one of those cheesy slow burn friends to lovers kind of deals, I guess. Or… it is, but we just hit all of our plot points a bit later than usual." 

"No," Phil says, "that's not… this _isn't_ a story." 

Dan has his head on Phil's chest and he tips his head back to look up at him. Phil is still running his fingers through the hair at the back of Dan's head and he doesn't stop, but he does look at Dan with a determined expression before he speaks again. 

"Real life isn't about that. We don't just tell each other how we're feeling and then have sex and then everything fades to black. There's no narrative arc we need to be hitting here." 

"I guess you're right," Dan says. 

"I am!" Phil insists, "I'd love to have sex with you. I mean…" he flushes a bit more and puts his other hand over his eyes for a second as if he can't believe what he's just said. "No, that is what I mean. I would. I've wanted to for… well, much longer than I'm going to admit to because I want to sound like I'm cool and not some loser that's been pining after you for a decade." 

"Hey," Dan says, "If that makes you a loser then so am I." 

They smile at each other, and Phil ducks down to give him another kiss. Dan tries to prolong it, but Phil doesn't give in that easy when he's determined about something like Dan's health. 

"Even though I'd like to, this is nice too," Phil says, "It can wait. We aren't going to run out of pages, or screen time. The movie isn't going to come to an end, the story doesn't just stop." 

Dan's heart is in his throat. Something flips over in his chest the same way it had back on the wheel, and when he'd confessed to the Phil in the Manchester apartment. It feels much like it had in every other world, except that it doesn't. Not really. This is so different, so much more. 

"We have all the time in the world, Dan." 

A breath skitters out of Dan's lungs and almost sounds like a sob, but he isn't crying. He's smiling, so hard that his face is starting to ache and he's sure he looks like a madman. 

"This world, and so many others," Dan says. 

"I like the sound of that."


End file.
